After dropping two games to Oregon during the weekend, the UCLA baseball team saw its national ranking fall from one to five. But thanks to a victory in Sunday’s series finale, the Bruins ensured that the plunge would not be too precipitous.
UCLA (27-5, 5-4) will now look to carry any momentum it may have generated on Sunday into tonight’s matchup with Long Beach State (15-17), a team that the Bruins defeated 10-1 in February.
The Bruins will aim to regain some of the offensive punch they showed in that matchup, an attack that was often absent over the weekend.
“We just need to stay with our hitting approach, stay inside balls, wear out the opposite field,” freshman third baseman Cody Regis said. “Winning (Sunday) was huge. We showed ourselves and everyone else that we can come back and not get down on ourselves. We were able to step up and come through.”
The consensus of the team following Sunday’s win over Oregon was that the victory would be particularly significant going forward. A loss would have given the Ducks the sweep and had UCLA looking up at the Pac-10 frontrunners, a large part of the reason that coach John Savage called it “the biggest game of the year.”
In Long Beach State, the Bruins will face a team that has lost three of its last four, but the Dirtbags have sharpened their teeth on a number of Pac-10 opponents despite playing in the Big West.
The Dirtbags took two out of three from Oregon State earlier in the season and also won a pair of games at Arizona. That said, the primary focus for UCLA will be ironing out some of the kinks that emerged in the armor, particularly the bats.
“We need to fine-tune some things,” Savage said. “When you have guys that lack confidence and stop using the whole field, and then you throw in that good pitching (of Oregon), you get a stagnant offense, and that’s what we had this weekend.”
While the lineup continues to be a work in progress, the pitching rotation remains intact. Senior right-hander Garett Claypool is slated to start tonight against Long Beach State, and he should be in for a full night’s work. On April 13, Savage limited Claypool to three innings in his start against UC Riverside after the senior pitched extensively in relief that weekend.
Long Beach State will likely trot out freshman Nate Underwood, who has started the last three Tuesday games after beginning the season in the bullpen. Underwood pitched a scoreless inning of relief in the first meeting between the two teams.
At the least, today’s game gives the Bruins an opportunity to recharge the batteries after another grinder of a Pac-10 series.
Should the Bruins defeat the Dirtbags, UCLA can generate a mini winning streak heading into a weekend road trip to Arizona.
“I think it’s huge for us,” starting pitcher Rob Rasmussen said of garnering some momentum. “We’ve faced a lot of different challenges in the last couple weeks, losing that game to Stanford and having the winning streak cut, losing that first game to Oregon State … now losing the first two games and saying we’re not going to let this snowball. We’re going to cut it here.”