The No. 14 UCLA baseball team opens its season Friday against Maryland at Jackie Robinson Stadium.
We caught up with coach John Savage in anticipation of the opener to preview the season. The Bruins were picked to finish fourth in the Pac-12 conference behind Stanford, Arizona and Arizona State.
On expectations for this season
“We’re looking to go to Omaha. That’s the goal every year. The bar was set in 2010. Last year, it seemed to be a complete grind throughout the year. We ended up winning the league and being a No. 1 seed at home. At the end of the day, we got where we wanted to get and then we get and we lost in the ninth. It was a tough way to finish and then on the following Monday you get the first and third pick. It was a roller coaster but this team has an edge to it, which I like. It has good chemistry, good leadership, this group of juniors have won 86 games in two years. They’re used to winning and the thought of winning without Gerrit and Trevor means a lot to them. They want to prove to everybody that they can do it and I don’t need to push it. We knew guys would be leaving after three years. We don’t have one senior in this class. It just goes to show you that we’ve produced a lot of junior drafts, we’ve had 51 guys drafted in seven years. Our guys believe in each other and I think we’re going to be a pretty good club. We need to get our roles established on the mound. We’re very deep with position players. We knew it was going to be the post-Cole-Bauer era and I think they’re prepared for it.”
On being ranked lower than last season
“It’s a compliment to this group of players that we’re ranked as high as we are without (Cole and Bauer). It’s expectations within the program that gets us going and the competitiveness within our program. We’ve gotten good through competition in practice and in the weight room and in conditioning and in different drills. These guys have a good motor and a positive environment. I’m sure we’ll be behind Stanford and Arizona in the Pac-12 poll and that’s OK with us. We all know that the bottom line is you have to go out and play. The expectations are high within the program and that’s all that matters.”
On offense after struggling last season
“You saw those guys as freshman that had good years and they really struggled as a group offensively last year. We struggled to score runs and the bat was part of the equation. We didn’t handle that very well and we played a lot of tight games. We’re a much better offensive club than we displayed last year. I firmly believe that. I think we have a bunch of good position players. We have a good junior class. We have a good sophomore class. We have a good freshman group of players so I think we’re going to make a U-turn on offense. I really do. I think we’re going to be an offensive team. We’re fast. We’re left-handed and we’re very competitive on the position player side. Our biggest concern is depth on the mound and if our starters can give us quality starts and get to the bullpen in the 7th, 8th and 9th, I think we expect to have a pretty good year.”
On new offensive assistant coach Rex Peters
“Coach Vanderhook did a great job for us. He was a big part of our success over the last couple years. It’s a new voice, a new style and a different style. Rex brings a ton of experience: Eight years as the head coach at Chapman, eight years as the head coach at Davis, we’re very fortunate to get a guy with that much experience to be an assistant. He’s done a terrific job. I think our players respect him. They’re going to follow his lead on the offensive side and I think we’re going to be right where we want to be offensively.”
On the pitching roatation
“We’re going to go with Plutko, Vander Tuig has completely retired from Tommy John two years ago and got put in a tough role last year as a closer. He’ll be our Saturday guy and we think we have one of the better Sunday guys out there in Weiss so it looks like Watson could be our Tuesday starter. We haven’t announced that yet but it looks like we’ll go with those three sophomores and potentially those guys could be in that rotation for the next two years so that part of it is pretty exciting.”
On the bullpen
“I think we’re deeper. I really do. Deeter has had a real good January and February. David Berg, a freshman out of Bishop Amat, is throwing the ball real well. Eric Jaffe is finding confidence and throwing the ball really well and we’re going to go with Griggs to close the game. He’s throwing the ball really well and with much more confidence. I’m looking forward to the start and roles are established now but 10 games in, they could change depending on how things go. I like our depth. It’s somewhat inexperienced but there are some good arms and we do need good quality starts. We need six innings and I think all those guys are very capable of doing that.”
On leadership
“I love our leaders, I really do. Our captains are Pat Valaika, Adam Plutko, Scott Griggs, Jeff Gelalich and Beau Amaral. We have two outfielders, one infielder and two pitchers. They’ve done an unbelievable job of leading this group through all of the weight training, conditioning and practice. They’re running that clubhouse pretty good. They have a good sense of expectations. They have a sense of doing things right and I love our leaderhsip. I think these are as good of position players that we’ve had here as a group and as good of leaders as we’ve had so I’m excited to get going and see where we’re at.”
On this year’s team being more cohesive than last year’s
“There was so much media attention and so much star power with Gerrit and Trevor and they deserved it. You just don’t see those types of guys come around very often and to do what they did with the pressure that was on them to perform, I’m very proud of those guys but this is a different team and I think this team is going to find a way to do it a different way than relying on Gerrit and Trevor as we did possibly too much last year. The team has an edge and the chemistry is pretty good.”