Dean Espy already had UCLA’s biggest hit of the game, but when he came to the plate in the ninth inning Saturday against Nebraska, he needed to get another rally going.
The sophomore third baseman, who had belted a three-run homer in the second inning, singled to lead off the bottom of the ninth and later came around to score the winning run on Tyler Rahmatulla’s walk-off sacrifice fly in UCLA’s 5-4 victory. With the win, the Bruins (9-0) set the program record for best start to a season.
“It just shows how tough our team is, when it comes down to playing baseball, the small things,” Espy said. “I got the single, but the reason we won is we got two solid bunts down and (Rahmatulla) came up and really did a great job of getting his pitch and sticking with his approach.”
The late rally was only necessary because Nebraska rallied for three runs in the top of the eighth against the UCLA bullpen, which gave up its first runs of the season. Sophomore Mitchell Beacom gave up one run, while fellow sophomore Erik Goeddel was charged with two runs in just one-third of an inning. Sophomore Dan Klein was credited with a blown save after giving up the tying hit, but he came back to pitch a scoreless top of the ninth to earn the victory.
“It’s going to happen, you’re going to get out there and give up some runs,” coach John Savage said of his bullpen. “It was one of those things where you just have to give Nebraska a lot of credit. They fought back.”
Espy’s home run in the second staked the Bruins to an early 4-1 lead behind starting pitcher Rob Rasmussen, who gave up one unearned run in five innings of work. However, it didn’t necessarily come easily for the junior left-hander, who was forced to throw 99 pitches and overcome some shaky fielding behind him.
“(Rasmussen) threw a lot of extra pitches, and we didn’t play very good defense today,” Savage said. “There were some big pitches made, and it turned out to be a good outing, but it wasn’t easy.”
The 9-0 record is UCLA’s best in the modern era, exceeding their previous mark of 8-0 set in 1978. While the Bruins showed a propensity for winning with big offensive showings early in the season, lately they have been forced to scrap for their wins, a style that the team feels it has the right personnel for and is buying into.
Saturday’s victory came on the heels of the Bruins sweeping a double-header on Friday, winning 13-1 and 5-3 behind the arms of sophomore starting pitchers Gerrit Cole and Trevor Bauer.
With the UCLA defense committing three errors and the normally-stout bullpen blowing a late lead, the series finale was a game that the Bruins may have deserved to lose. That said, UCLA was able to find a way to win.
“We know there’s going to be some bumps along the road, but so far we’ve been pretty good,” Savage said. “Today was probably the game that we have not played very well, and we came out on top, which is the sign of a good team.”
On Saturday, Nebraska’s insurgence in the eighth inning posed the biggest threat to UCLA’s unblemished mark, but the Bruins were able to respond to the Cornhuskers’ late-inning push with a rally of their own that they feel is reflective of their mentality.
“We’re looking for a challenge, and that’s why it was good today,” Espy said. “They challenged us and punched us, and we punched back and ended up winning.”