With UCLA baseball emerging as the only team at the USA Baseball-Irish Classic over the weekend to win all of its games, it will look to bring that momentum back to Jackie Robinson Stadium.
No. 13 UCLA (7-4) returns home for a matchup with Loyola Marymount University (4-7) on Tuesday. The Lions, who have won their past two games, lost the 2013 season series 2-1 to UCLA.
The Bruins ended their previous home stand with three straight losses before they started a three-game winning streak on the road.
“We’re not one to dwell on the past and I think that’s one of our strengths – (to) learn from our mistakes and move on,” said junior catcher Shane Zeile. “It was good that we didn’t let it affect us negatively and we moved on and showed we’re a bounce-back kind of team.”
UCLA’s starting pitchers rebounded to carry the team this weekend by throwing 25 scoreless innings and striking out 27 batters. Sophomore starting pitcher Cody Poteet was two hits away from throwing a perfect game. His performance earned him national honors as Poteet was named one of the National Players of the Week by Collegiate Baseball/Louisville Slugger on Monday.
UCLA will look for another bounce-back pitching performance on Tuesday, this time from freshman Grant Dyer, who gave up five earned runs in four and a third innings pitched in his last start, a loss against UC Santa Barbara.
Coach John Savage said that Dyer pitched well in the first eight innings of his career and he is looking for Dyer to get back on track.
“Like all our pitchers, they just need to execute pitches and be able to get ahead of people and throw their different pitches for strikes,” Savage said. “The more pitches you can throw for strikes, the more difficult it is to figure you out. He needs to get his change-up going, along with that good curveball and that command fastball, and he’ll be fine.”
As a former Tuesday starter, Poteet offered this advice to his teammate: Use what Savage has taught him, be himself and remember that the distance between the mound and home plate is the same every time.
While the pitching has been reliable, the offense has not. During the win streak, the offense scored only nine runs and is only hitting .172, forcing the players to rely on timely hitting to put runs on the board.
“One of the things coach preaches is just don’t do too much with two strikes,” said sophomore shortstop Trent Chatterton, who knocked in the only two runs of the game on Saturday. “Instead of taking hacks with two strikes and striking out, we try to make the defense work and it works in our favor.”
As the team works to improve its hitting, Savage said that the team is still in the process of forming its identity, but is getting closer to what they are looking for. The confidence that the team gained on the road trip will be a building block for the rest of the season.
“Whenever you go on the road and win three games against great programs of this stature, it just gives you confidence,” Savage said. “We’ve played some good games this year, but we haven’t really strung three games together like we did this weekend, so I think we can build off that and realize what we’re capable of doing.”