For a player and a team that have struggled throughout the first half of the 2016 season, Friday night’s game may have marked a turning point.
Junior left fielder Brett Stephens keyed a thrilling ninth-inning comeback, helping UCLA baseball (13-15, 5-6 Pac-12) snap a seven-game losing streak and even up its weekend series against Stanford (16-9, 5-3) at one game apiece with a 6-5 victory.
Stephens tied the game in the ninth with a two-run double to the wall in right-center field, then scored the winning run on a walk-off single by junior designated hitter Kort Peterson.
UCLA entered its final at-bat down 5-3, needing to mount a charge against electric Stanford closer Colton Hock, who overpowered the Bruins in the ninth inning on Thursday with a mid-to-high-90s fastball and a mid-80s slider.
“He was up to 97 last night with an 85-mph slider, that’s a major league closer,” said UCLA coach John Savage after Friday’s game. “He wasn’t quite as sharp tonight and that’s why you play three games.”
The UCLA offense, which produced just eight runs in the previous five games, finally woke up, pounding out four hits against Hock to steal a much-needed win.
After the Bruins’ first two batters reached on an error and a single, senior shortstop Trent Chatterton laid down a sacrifice bunt to move the tying run into scoring position for Stephens.
Stephens, whose slow start at the plate left him with a .163 average entering Friday night’s game, tagged a 2-2 pitch over the right fielder’s head, tying the game and moving into scoring position himself with a double.
Stephens moved to third on a single from freshman pinch-hitter Jake Pries, then came home with the winning run on a walk-off single by Peterson.
“Things just haven’t been going the way we want them to go lately, and we’re frustrated,” Stephens said afterward. “We put a lot of hard work in today in our preparation today and kept playing baseball, the whole nine innings, and good things came around for us at the end.”
Stephens hit .298 last year, good for third on a UCLA team that spent much of the season at No. 1 in the national rankings. Halfway through the 2016 campaign, Stephens is nowhere near that kind of production.
The hits haven’t been falling for the junior left fielder, and that trend continued for most of Friday night. Stephens scorched a line drive in the third inning, only to see it snagged by the second baseman, and smacked a deep fly ball in the fifth that was tracked down by the center fielder.
“I hit the ball hard twice – I felt good, I was seeing it good,” Stephens said. “There was no panic, I just stuck with my approach and got one to fall.”
He worked into a 2-2 count against Hock and smashed a curveball to the base of the wall, pulling into second and letting out an exhilarated yell.
“It’s always good to get a result for your team in a big spot,” Stephens said. “It was an awesome win. I don’t mean to say ‘need it,’ but it was definitely a big one to have.”
Peterson’s second walk-off hit of the season was not as majestic as his first – a towering home run to the batting facility in right field – but it was much more meaningful.
“Definitely two different things but this was a bigger moment for our team as an overall picture,” Peterson said. “This was a big win for us, for sure.”
In poking a single through the left side, the left-handed hitter executed perfectly the game plan he had received before the at-bat from hitting and outfield coach Rex Peters.
“He just said stay short, don’t try to do too much, think middle-opp and that’s exactly what happened,” Peterson said. “I got a pitch away and just stayed short, put a swing on it and it got through the hole.”
UCLA never led until the end of the game, though the Bruins threatened to jump ahead in the bottom of the sixth.
Down 3-1 heading into the frame, the Bruins’ first five hitters reached, tying the game and threatening for more with the bases loaded and nobody out. The next three batters went down in order, though, as Stanford freshman starter Tristan Beck turned to his dominant stuff to escape the jam with a pop-up and two strikeouts.
Beck, a prodigious prospect, limited the Bruins to just one run over the first five innings before running into trouble in the sixth.
“Beck’s one of the best freshmen, really, in the country – fastball command, good curveball,” Savage said. “One of those guys that really could have gotten a couple million dollars out of high school,”
Beck notched eight punch-outs over his six innings and was in line for the win after the Cardinal’s two-run seventh.
“He was as good as advertised,” Savage said. “I was really most impressed in that sixth inning, in terms of his ability to pitch out of problems. He was good all night but what he did in the sixth was veteran-ish, for sure.”
UCLA junior starter Grant Dyer threw effectively, too, letting up just three runs in six innings.
Sophomore righty Jake Bird and redshirt junior lefty Hunter Virant gave up the lead in the seventh, but junior righty Moises Ceja kept the score tight, recording the last seven outs without allowing a hit. Ceja threw just 22 pitches, 16 for strikes, as he made quick work of the Cardinal in the latter innings and set up the Bruin offense for the comeback.
“It kind of felt like what we’re capable of doing and what we should be doing,” Savage said of the win. “It wasn’t a UFO flying over, it wasn’t extra-crazy, it was just good, solid baseball – guys putting good quality at-bats together and eventually getting rewarded. We haven’t been rewarded much lately.”