Earlier this season, coach John Savage said the UCLA baseball team was “bad” at everything the team had been traditionally good at.
What he was referring to was pitching and defense. That’s what got the Bruins to the pinnacle of college baseball in 2013, and it was what elevated them to a No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament last season.
But for the first four games of 2016, those two aspects were sorely missing from UCLA’s game. The Bruins allowed 33 runs and committed nine errors during their 1-3 start to the year.
“They’re young guys, and we’re going to stay with them and we’re going to get through this,” Savage said on Feb. 23, after UCLA lost 10-1 at home to Long Beach State. “We’re going to be better because of this. I just don’t know when.”
The time is now.
No. 21 UCLA (5-5) won 4-2 over Oklahoma (4-7) on Saturday, just one day after defeating No. 20 Mississippi State. Once again, pitching and defense were integral to the Bruins’ success.
The game was stuck in a scoreless tie for the first five innings. Sophomore starter Jake Bird allowed a few hard-hit balls early on, but escaped jams when he faced them.
“We pitched out of problems really well,” Savage said.
UCLA’s defense helped the pitchers do it. With two outs in the top of the third inning, junior left fielder Brett Stephens made a sliding catch in shallow left field to prevent a run from scoring.
In the bottom of the fifth inning, the Bruins once again pitched out of problems. With only one out, Oklahoma strung together two straight full-count walks. Add in a balk and a stolen base, and UCLA junior reliever Scott Burke was chased from the game.
In came redshirt freshman righty Nathan Hadley, inheriting the two-on-one-out situation.
“Just pitching in those (pressure) moments, … I love it. I don’t know why,” Hadley said.
Hadley came in and struck out Oklahoma’s cleanup hitter on a 3-2 changeup. After issuing a walk to the next batter, Hadley came back and once again struck out a batter with another changeup.
“I just had no command of the fastball today,” Hadley said. “So (it was) changeups and they just kept swinging over it.”
Hadley would allow a run on a sac fly in the next inning, but he and the Bruins’ five other pitchers mostly excelled with pitching under pressure. Oklahoma ended the game with 13 runners left on base.
“We can’t walk nine guys. You know, that’s ridiculous,” Savage said. “We’ve always pitched well out of problems. So that’s one of our identities.”
On the offensive end, UCLA’s bats were very quiet for most of the day against Oklahoma starter Alec Hansen, but they eventually came to life. The Bruins plated all four of their runs in the bottom of the seventh inning, taking advantage of their best scoring opportunity of the day.
The inning began with UCLA’s lone extra-base hit of the game – a triple by junior first baseman Luke Persico.
“(That hit) turned the game,” Savage said.
UCLA plated Persico on a sac fly and kept the line moving with three straight walks, a fielder’s choice and a single.
These kind of games – low-scoring affairs that are won in the late innings – are a little more reminiscent of the UCLA teams that have been so successful in recent years.
“It was more of the Bruin way. Kind of like last year, you know – we didn’t really blow teams out and we didn’t get blown out,” Hadley said. “We won 4-1, or 3-2 – those were just the kinds of games we played.”
It’s only been a couple of games, but this UCLA team definitely looks different than the one that took the field for the first four games of the season.
Savage, Hadley and Persico all said that the team’s turning point came on Wednesday, when the Bruins narrowly lost to the NC Dinos of the Korean Professional Baseball League.
“We started playing as a team,” Persico said. “Pitchers started to pound the zone more, (and) make the defense work. And I think that’s changed a lot for us.”