Call it Clash with the Titans, the Sequel.
For the second time this season, the UCLA baseball team will face one of the nation’s traditionally elite programs in Cal State Fullerton. In their first meeting of the year, the No. 8 Titans (37-15) pounced on the Bruins early, scoring five runs on three home runs in the first inning before coasting to a 6-1 victory.
A sweep of California over the weekend bumped No. 7 UCLA (41-11) up three spots in the national rankings. UCLA was No. 3 in the country when they hosted a then-unranked Cal State Fullerton team back on April 6.
“I can assure you they’re going to get a looser team,” UCLA infielder Dean Espy said. “I think we hyped up that game a little too much.”
If the hype was big for the initial meeting, it’s gargantuan for the rematch.
This time around, it’s a bout between two top 10 teams that could be on a postseason collision course.
For now, though, UCLA will look to improve on both its seven-game winning streak and its 19-3 road record. It will be the Bruins’ final Tuesday game of the season, and thus the final regular season start for senior pitcher Garett Claypool. Claypool has started 32 games in his UCLA career, all of them coming in midweek action. The right-hander leads the Pac-10 with a 2.02 ERA.
“It’s a game where we’ve got to go out and be aggressive,” coach John Savage said. “I think it’s really important that Claypool gets back on the mound and re-establishes himself a little bit. Look for him to kind of lead us on Tuesday.”
Cal State Fullerton has won 10 of its last 11 games, including a recent weekend sweep of Santa Clara in which they scored 37 runs.
The Titans have lost just four times at home all season, and two of those defeats came against No. 3 Arizona State in the first two games of the season. That said, their pitching staff has given up a total of 28 runs in its last three Tuesdays.
UCLA, meanwhile, has had a similar run of success. In winning 11 of its last 12 ““ including sweeps of conference rivals Washington, USC, and Cal ““ the Bruins may be playing their best baseball of the season.
With just four games remaining, and less than a week until its postseason fate is revealed on Selection Monday, UCLA will look to maintain that high level of performance as it closes out the regular season.
For a team that was white-hot to start the year, it has taken a lot of success to return to that plateau.
“We’re playing really darn well,” said UCLA pitcher Rob Rasmussen, who was named the Pac-10 Pitcher of the Week for his performance against Cal. “It’s hard to beat that 22-game win streak we had, but we started off well. We had some speed bumps early, but it’s nice that we’ve really come back.”
While this will be the second meeting between the Bruins and the Titans, it might not be the last.
The structure of the NCAA super regionals ““ a bracket of the nation’s top 16 teams that resembles a March Madness region ““ means that there is a high probability that the two teams could face each other once again in June.
Talk about a summer blockbuster.