You have to go back nearly a full calendar year to find the last time the UCLA baseball team dropped a Pac-10 series.
Since getting swept by Arizona State over the first weekend of May 2010, the Bruins have won each of their last eight conference series, by taking either two or all three of the games with their various opponents.
It’s fairly evident that winning conference series translates to success ““ after all, UCLA was able to host both a regional and a super regional last season, and made it all the way to the finals of the College World Series.
It’s been more of the same in the Pac-10 for now-No. 20 UCLA (19-12, 9-3), which hosts San Diego State (11-25) tonight in a nonconference showdown.
The Bruins are currently tied for second place in the Pac-10 with Cal, half a game behind frontrunner Oregon State.
They’ve gotten there by winning each of their four conference series to begin the 2011 campaign.
“Winning series is what we strive for,” sophomore outfielder Beau Amaral said after UCLA took two out of three from Arizona over the weekend. “To win the Pac-10, you’ve got to win series.”
“The goal each weekend is to win the series, and we did that,” coach John Savage added.
What makes things a bit strange for the Bruins is that they are the first to admit they haven’t necessarily played their best baseball yet.
On Sunday, they committed an uncharacteristic five errors behind freshman starting pitcher Adam Plutko, who has dealt with his fair share of misfortune.
Despite posting an ERA of 1.87 through his first eight starts, Plutko hasn’t earned a win since February 27.
Still, it’s hard to argue against winning series, which the Bruins have been doing. Perhaps the only potential area of improvement would be finishing off three-game sweeps.
UCLA has twice missed opportunities to finish off sweeps on the road this season, dropping Sunday games at USC and Washington State.
“It’s always nice, especially in this conference, to come away with a sweep if you can,” sophomore third baseman Cody Regis said.
UCLA will get another crack at it this coming weekend when it travels to Stanford, but first, the Bruins will have to contend with a San Diego State squad which tonight will be looking to avenge a loss to the Bruins back on March 1.
The Aztecs know all too well what sweeps feel like, albeit for less pleasant reasons: San Diego State dropped all three of its games to TCU over the weekend, a series that extended the Aztecs’ losing streak to five.
A win over San Diego State should at least help UCLA maintain its momentum as it plunges deeper into the ultra-competitive Pac-10, which boasts five teams in Baseball America’s most recent Top 25 poll.