With the offense sputtering, the pitching stumbling, and the
defense fumbling, the UCLA baseball team was swept by No. 4 Oregon
State over the weekend, a familiar result in what has been a dark
and dreary season.
Sunday’s game epitomized the gap between the Bruins
(11-33) and quality opponents such as the Beavers (36-8). Oregon
State bashed out 19 hits en route to a never-in-doubt 16-3 victory,
dominating the Bruins in every aspect of the game.
Bruin starting pitcher Brant Rustich, who took the loss, lasted
only four innings while giving up eight runs on 10 hits.
The Bruin defense once again had adventures in the infield,
committing a total of three errors, which cost the Bruins four
runs.
“We just didn’t play catch today,” UCLA coach
John Savage said. “We’ve had injuries that have hurt
our depth, and we have guys out there like Sean Carpenter who
aren’t even really infielders.”
The Bruins combined for nine errors over the weekend, allowing
the Beavers to score 11 unearned runs. UCLA was outscored 29-8 in
the three games, with each loss more lopsided than the one
before.
On Friday night, Hector Ambriz pitched seven shutout innings and
had a pair of hits for the Bruins. However, he had little offensive
support, as the rest of the team managed just two more hits and
lost 3-1.
“I just put zeroes on the board,” Ambriz said.
“I tried to put us in a position to win.”
Little did Ambriz know at the time that the Bruins would not
come any closer the rest of the weekend. On Saturday, the Bruins
yielded six unearned runs in the sixth inning, which proved to make
the difference in the 10-4 loss.
“We played 17 really good innings over the first two
games,” Savage said. “We had one really bad inning, and
it cost us.”
On Sunday, it was more than one inning that did the Bruins in.
Oregon State scored at least one run in seven of the nine innings,
including five in the seventh inning.
UCLA has now lost eight consecutive series and has been swept in
four of their first five conference matchups.
With wins at a premium to find, the positives are coming in the
closely contested losses for Savage.
“Ultimately, it was a mixed weekend,” Savage
said.
“We played really well on Friday night, and played well on
Saturday except for one bad inning. [Sunday] we were just
outclassed and overmatched by a better team.”