UCLA baseball had already lost Games 1 and 2 when Washington took a 5-0 lead in the fourth inning Sunday. In the second half of that game, UCLA found a way to avoid the sweep.
“It was a struggle. A struggle of a weekend,” said coach John Savage. ”We salvaged the weekend, really. We did not play well on Friday.”
In the bottom of the ninth, Zander Clarke pinch-hit with the bases loaded and no outs. The Bruins had just tied the game 5-5.
With the Huskies employing a five-man infield, the redshirt sophomore got a fastball up and drove it into left center – good for a game-winning sacrifice fly.
UCLA (14-15, 7-5 Pac-12) dropped Saturday’s matchup 6-3 but picked up a walk-off 6-5 win over Washington (18-12, 6-3) on Sunday and sneaked into a tie for third in the conference standings.
“We needed to win this game,” Savage said. “This was a big game in the Pac-12 scheme of things.”
Washington opened the scoring with five runs in the fourth – all with two outs. Savage pulled his Sunday starter, Jon Olsen, after the sophomore gave up a home run and walked in a run.
Freshman Nick Scheidler came in and gave up two hits before senior Scott Burke struck out the final batter of the frame.
UCLA scored a single run in the fourth, fifth, sixth and eighth innings and kept Washington from plating another run, cutting the Huskies’ lead to 5-4 entering the ninth.
“Our philosophy is to win innings. Winning innings is 1-0. Now if it’s more than that, of course we take it, but at the end of the day, we chipped away,” Savage said. “And to our guys’ credit, we kept putting up zeros too on defense.”
Although the Bruins never scored more than two runs in any frame, UCLA tied or outscored Washington in every inning except the fourth.
Jake Bird threw two scoreless innings in the eighth and ninth to pick up the win. An injury to the junior’s shoulder caused him to miss four starts and lost him his spot in the rotation. After the game, Bird said the shoulder was feeling really good.
“(Bird) is fully back and that’s a big deal for us,” Savage said. “We need another quality arm.”
Kyle Cuellar – who was day-to-day with hamstring issues earlier this weekend – put together Sunday’s biggest offensive performance. The freshman designated hitter went 4-for-5 and doubled in the ninth to bringing the winning runs to second and third.
“The guy just has a knack to hit,” Savage said. “He uses the whole field. …. Whenever a guy is hitting the ball from pole to pole, he’s tough to pitch to, he’s tough to defend against, because you just don’t know where the ball’s going.”
Saturday’s struggle
In Saturday’s tilt, the Bruin offense failed to plate a run in the first six innings, going 3-for-21 and grounding into two double plays to start the game.
UCLA scored its first run on a pinch-hit home run from freshman Michael Toglia in the seventh. The Bruins strung three hits together in the eighth to score two more, but ultimately fell three runs short of the Huskies’ total.
Senior starter Moises Ceja made his way through five innings and gave up two runs. After sophomore lefty Justin Hooper fired a perfect sixth inning, four different pitchers tried to get UCLA out of the seventh, giving up three runs in the process.