In Jackie Robinson Stadium on Thursday night, it was a slugfest between the two arms on the mound, not the two offenses at the plate.
No. 3 UCLA (26-8, 12-4 Pac-12) sent out its top starting pitcher – junior James Kaprielian – for the series opener, while Cal countered with one of its best pitchers – sophomore Daulton Jefferies.
Both starters went into the sixth without giving up a run, locked in a scoreless tie. And though Kaprielian was clearly more dominant on paper – he landed 11 punch-outs to Jefferies’ four – Cal was able to land the knockout punch with one swing of the bat against Kaprielian in the top of the sixth.
After working the count to 2-2, Cal third baseman Lucas Erceg took advantage of what coach John Savage called Kaprielian’s only mistake of the night: a high curveball. Moments after the curve ball touched Erceg’s bat, it was over the fence, giving Cal a 1-0 lead it wouldn’t relinquish in its eventual 2-0 win.
“He made literally one mistake and it cost him the ballgame,” Savage said.
Savage commended the Bears for their ability to work counts against Kaprielian, forcing him to throw strikeouts on most at bats instead of swinging earlier in the count. By the end of the sixth, Kaprielian’s pitch count was over 100 and he was forced to leave the game, his propensity for strikeouts seeming to be his downfall.
“This pitch count was based off one thing and one thing only: strikeouts – a lot of strikeouts,” Savage said. “Whenever you have strikeouts, you’re gonna have (a high) pitch count.”
In a sort of rope-a-dope-type game, Cal (23-11, 10-6) took the blows that Kaprielian was dealing with strikeout after strikeout. Of the Bears’ 11 strikeouts against Kaprielian, five of them were caught looking.
“(The Bears) did what they needed to do: (They) got him out of the game,” Savage said. “A little of that was (Kaprielian’s) own doing with the strikeouts and another was Cal … (had) a little deeper counts.”
After Kaprielian exited the game in the sixth, the Bruin batters had a couple of chances to resurrect their pitcher’s performance. In the bottom of the seventh, they came out aggressive, swinging at the first seven pitches of the inning. The result was back-to-back one-out singles by senior third baseman Chris Keck and sophomore right fielder Kort Peterson.
“Being aggressive (was key in the seventh),” Keck said. “In that inning we took advantage of (Jefferies’) mistakes, which we had not done the whole game. Unfortunately we weren’t able to get enough hits.”
The two batters after Keck and Peterson struck out, leaving two runners stranded on base. In the bottom of the eighth, UCLA did the same thing, stranding two more runners on the basepaths without scoring a run.
“If you lose a game based off one or two (pitching) mistakes, you haven’t had enough people do their jobs. And that’s kind of what happened tonight offensively,” Savage said.
Now that Thursday’s game is done and over with, sophomore first baseman Luke Persico said the best thing for UCLA to do is just roll with the punches and treat tomorrow like a new day, with two games still remaining in the series.
“I think tomorrow we just need to get back after what we know and stick with our plan,” Persico said.