In college baseball, pitchers don’t pitch all nine innings that often, but UCLA senior pitcher Tyson Brummett has thrown two complete games in a row. The feat is more remarkable when considering that the Bruins as a team had only six complete games during the entire 2006 season, and only one of them was by Brummett.
Brummett has done this against quality competition as well. On Feb. 16, his one-run, nine-strikeout performance came against an East Carolina team that has a good chance of making it to the NCAA Tournament.
Brummett struck out 11 and allowed only one run on five hits against No. 10 Cal State Fullerton on Friday, a team that features an explosive offense.
His fellow pitchers weren’t nearly as successful against Fullerton over the weekend and haven’t been nearly as consistent as Brummett (1.34 ERA, 33 strikeouts and only 6 walks in 33 2/3 innings) this season, who has emerged as not only the team’s ace, but one of the best starting pitchers in the country.
Highly touted freshman Charles Brewer was expected to be the team’s Saturday starter this season, but he has been sidelined this season because of an injury. Coach John Savage hopes Brewer will be back for the team’s next series against Mississippi starting on March 9.
“With Brewer being out, who’s clearly our Saturday guy, it has been a struggle,” Savage said after Sunday’s loss. “Did we pitch poorly? No, we didn’t do that, but we didn’t pitch good enough.
Freshman Matt Drummond and sophomore Brendan Lafferty have switched off filling in for Brewer, and it was Drummond’s turn Saturday. Drummond lasted only 1 2/3 innings before being replaced by long reliever Jason Novak. Drummond allowed three runs, walking two batters and striking out two. Paul Schmidt would later help keep the game close by finishing the game with 5 1/3 innings, allowing only one run.
Sunday starter Gavin Brooks had a tough outing against Fullerton. He began the game with four great innings, allowing only one run. But in the fifth, the floodgates opened, and it could be argued that none of the three runs that inning would have scored if not for a defensive mistake earlier in the inning. Early in the fifth, Brooks had Fullerton’s Chris Jones picked off at first, but a bad throw by the first baseman allowed Jones to be safe at second. All three runs were scored with two outs.
“We can take a lot from Brooks’ performance,” Savage said. “He competed. Was it great on paper? No, but they’re a pretty good offensive team.”
Brooks was relieved by freshman Garett Claypool after the three runs scored to strike out the last batter of the inning.
INJURY UPDATE: Left fielder Will Penniall was taken out early in Saturday’s game and did not play on Sunday because of a bad hamstring. He was replaced by Gabe Cohen.
“Gabe’s been swinging a hot bat for us,” said Savage, who put Cohen in the cleanup spot Sunday. In limited playing time, Cohen has hit .300, and his two doubles and home runs give him a slugging percentage of .567, which is second on the team among players with at least 30 at-bats, behind only Brandon Crawford (.667).
Third baseman Nolan Rouse was benched for Sunday’s game because of a bad shoulder, and the player who would usually back him up, Eddie Murray, didn’t start because of a swollen eye. That gave freshman Corey Ashner his first career start as a Bruin. After Ashner was lifted for a pinch hitter later in the game, Murray was able to come back in and play third base. Ashner went 1 for 2.
A BREAK: The Bruins don’t play again until March 9, getting 12 days in between games.
“It comes at a very key time,” center fielder Tim Murphy said. “We’ve got a couple of guys who are banged up. It will give our pitchers’ arms a break. We can work on a few things offensively.”
Twelve days is the longest stretch between games for UCLA this season.