As soon as Kort Peterson hit it, he put his head down and raised his right hand, index finger pointing skyward.
He’d never pimped a home run before, but this one was worth pimping.
Peterson led off the bottom of the ninth inning with a towering walk-off blast that gave No. 14 UCLA baseball (7-7) a 5-4 win over Texas (7-8) Saturday, bailing out the Bruins after they blew a lead in the top of the ninth and evening up their weekend series with the Longhorns at one game apiece.
Kort Peterson knew it was gone the moment he hit it. @UCLABaseball walks off in 9th on Peterson's 2nd HR in 2 days. pic.twitter.com/JiBSZ4ARFZ
— Matt Joye (@mattjoye) March 13, 2016
Peterson had been at the plate an inning earlier when the Bruins scored what looked to be the winning run on a double steal.
With runners on the corners and two outs, redshirt senior right fielder Eric Filia strayed off the first-base bag, drew a pickoff throw and got trapped in a rundown. Before the Longhorns could tag out Filia, senior second baseman Brett Urabe raced home from third and put the Bruins up 4-3.
Texas would strike back, though, tying the game before UCLA freshman closer Brian Gadsby could record an out in the top of the ninth. The Longhorns threatened for more, too, with men on second and third and no outs.
But Gadsby held the runners there, getting two strikeouts and a weak chopper to keep the game tied.
Then Peterson, back at the plate to lead off the bottom of the ninth, turned on a 1-0 pitch on the inside corner and smacked a no-doubter over the right field fence.
It was the second homer of the junior’s collegiate career – just one day after he hit his first in Friday’s 7-5 loss.
“I definitely feel in the zone right now,” Peterson said. “Last year, I feel like I cut my swing off a lot. This year, I’m just putting a lot better-quality swings on the ball.”
Peterson knocked in three of UCLA’s five runs Saturday and scored another, even though the left-handed hitter moved down from the cleanup spot to fifth in the order against talented Texas lefty Ty Culbreth.
“I’ve gotten a lot more comfortable facing lefties the past two years,” Peterson said. “If you try to pull a lefty, you’re probably going to roll over … You’ve just really got to think middle of the field.”
Although Peterson did roll over once, he also sprayed a sacrifice fly to left and lined an RBI single into center field as the Bruins built an early 3-0 lead for sophomore right-hander Jake Bird.
Bird, starting for the second Saturday in a row, limited Texas to just two runs in 5.2 innings, holding the Longhorns scoreless until the sixth. He only struck out one batter, but he used his sinker to induce 11 groundouts.
“You’ve got to know what your strength is, and his strength is pitching to contact,” said coach John Savage. “(He’s) not a big strikeout pitcher but his stuff is good enough – you talk about a 92, 91, 90 mile-per-hour sinker, that’s an above-average pitch.”
Bird, initially projected as the team’s seventh-inning reliever, has helped fill the void of injured starter Grant Dyer the past two weeks.
After throwing a then-career-high three innings last Saturday against Oklahoma, Bird worked deeper into the game against Texas after switching to a starter’s throwing program this week.
Once Dyer returns, Bird is a strong candidate to start in Tuesday games, Savage said, which could help solve UCLA’s midweek problems.
With Saturday’s win, the Bruins are 4-0 in one-run games this season and 6-1 in games decided by two or fewer runs.
It looked for a moment Saturday like the Bruins might end up on the wrong end of a close ballgame, with the Longhorns in prime position to plate the go-ahead run against Gadsby in the top of the ninth before the freshman set down three straight batters.
“Once I got that first one, I felt a little more confident,” Gadsby said. “It was like, alright, if I can get one, I can get two more.”
Although Gadsby did lose the lead, the right-hander impressed his coach by escaping the jam with just one run surrendered.
“That is big-time pitching, that’s as good as it gets,” Savage said. “He blew the save, but to pitch out of problems the way he did, I thought, was really exceptional.”