Baseball fans dig the long ball, but with the undefeated Cal Poly Mustangs coming to Jackie Robinson Stadium this weekend, they will likely not see much offensive production. This series will be all about the
pitching.
Through the first four games of the season, No. 10 UCLA (3-1) has held opponents to a .149 batting average and has a team earned run average of 0.95.
Meanwhile, No. 22 Cal Poly (4-0) has a team ERA of 0.75 with opponents only batting .132 against it.
The matchup is a rematch of the second game of last season’s NCAA regionals, which UCLA won 6-4 on its way to winning the national championship.
“I think they’re clearly one of the premier teams on the West Coast. I really do,” said coach John Savage. “(They) beat a Kansas State team that was ranked in the top 25 and (handled) them (for) three games.”
Cal Poly’s pitching staff is led by junior southpaw Matt Imhof, who Savage described as a potential top-50 pick in the 2014 MLB draft. Imhof struck out a career high 14 batters over seven scoreless innings in his first start of the season last weekend.
In his playoff start against the Bruins last season, Imhof threw five scoreless innings before surrendering four runs in the sixth.
“Imhof is one of the best left-handed pitchers in the country, really,” Savage said. “We respect him and he handled us pretty much last season for several innings in the playoff game and then the game opened up a little bit. We know how good he is, we just need to prepare for him and compete on Friday night.”
The last time UCLA faced a lefty starter was in the season opener against Portland’s junior Travis Radke. He only allowed two hits and struck out seven Bruins en route to a 1-0 win.
Given the strength of the Mustangs’ pitching staff, the Bruins’ offense will need to continue to exploit any mistakes that their opponents make, as they did against the Matadors Tuesday night.
“Baseball is weird game sometimes,” said redshirt sophomore outfielder Christoph Bono. “Obviously defense is a huge part, so when the other teams make mistakes … it’s important to make sure we capitalize on them and try and get as much out of them as possible.”
With these top-notch pitching staffs facing off, there is a high potential for three close and intense ballgames at Jackie Robinson Stadium this weekend, especially after how last year ended between these two clubs.
“When we played them last year, they might have been one of the best teams we played in the postseason,” said junior closer David Berg. “They’re going to come out to start with a lot of energy. I know they’re a little bit bitter about what happened last year here at regionals, so you know they’re going to come give us everything they’ve got and we’re going to do the same.”
Email Drantch at jdrantch@media.ucla.edu.