NICOLE MILLER/Daily Bruin Sophomore pitcher Casey
Janssen winds up for the pitch in a match with
Gonzaga.
By Scott Bair
Daily Bruin Reporter
The 2002 Bruin baseball team is an unmolded blob of clay ““
all that is left of the statue that stood a year ago.
Gone is the figurehead and resident superstar, pitcher Josh Karp
and his 92 strikeouts. Gone is the clutch hitting and offensive
prowess and .443 batting average of Brian Baron. Gone is the
agility and speed of Matt Pearl. Gone is the heart and soul of last
year’s team, Josh Canales.
Never there were two blue-chip prospects Michael Stodolka and
Shaun Boyd. Both were offered scholarships but were taken in the
2000 amateur draft as the fourth and 13th overall selections,
respectively.
What remains on UCLA head coach Gary Adam’s line-up card
is a chunk of unsculpted clay that was picked to finish eighth out
of nine among Pac-10 teams.
“On paper going into the season that’s probably a
realistic pick,” Adams said. “That being said,
it’s still only on paper. It’s not written in ink;
it’s written in pencil and with hard work, practice, and
steady improvement, we can erase what’s been
written.”
Is there enough talent on this team to erase what’s been
written?
Only time will tell.
Two true freshmen, third baseman Kevin Conlin and designated
hitter Wes Whisler, will be among the starting nine and will be the
key to Bruin offensive success. Whisler was dubbed “Mr.
Baseball Indiana” in high school. He gave a brief display of
his talent when he hardly used any effort to hit a towering homer
to right field in UCLA’s alumni game, but has looked timid in
the Bruin’s last three games. The 6-foot-5, 227-pound second
team high school All-American hit .440 with 15 homers in 2001.
Conlin was a .443 hitter in high school and has been recently
converted to third base.
The middle infield defense will be improved with returning
shortstop Preston Griffin and senior defensive standout Ryan
Rasmussen, who will return to full-time duty at second after being
hit in the head with a baseball during last year’s fall
practice.
Strikeout prone but powerful outfielders Adam Berry and Brandon
Averill will man the corner positions. All Pac-10 outfielder Ben
Francisco, one of last year’s pleasant surprises, will take
center. The trio has already proven to be a force at the plate,
combining for nine home runs, 16 RBIs, and 18 hits in the
season’s first four games.
“I think they’re a talented ball club. They’ve
got some young guys with some power and if the starting pitching
can come through for them they’re going to be a tough team to
beat, Canales said.”
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The lack of experience in the starting rotation is the largest
question mark on a team full of uncertainty.
Sophomore Chris Cordeiro has emerged as the Friday night starter
despite throwing only 15 innings in his first season with the
Bruins. Bullpen bulldogs Mike Kunes and either Mike Davern or Casey
Janssen will round out the three-man rotation. Kunes and Janssen
both pitched well in their first starts of the season, combining to
allow three runs in 10 ten innings.
“It’s a little scary. We don’t return any
starters, but our bullpen ERA last year was good,” UCLA
pitching coach Gary Adcock said. “But the scary thing is, can
these guys move from the bullpen and be starters, and then will it
affect the bullpen?”
The depth of UCLA’s bullpen will be depleted, but talent
still remains in both the young and the old. Senior Nick Lyon, who
returns after a medical redshirt in 2001, and freshman Kyle Wilson,
who has enormous talent in his right arm, will be the featured
components in the bullpen. Adcock said that the starters must go
into the sixth or seventh inning in order to preserve the
bullpen’s effectiveness over the whole season.
With every positive note there lies a thousand questions. Will
the Bruin pitchers allow two runs like they did last Friday or 14
like they did on Saturday? Will the Bruins score 12 runs on 13 hits
like they did last Sunday or will they amass four hits on 13
strikeouts like they did against UC Irvine last week?
Four games into the season, the Bruins are 2-2, having played
two good games and two bad ones, giving no indication as to where
the 2002 season will go. The mound of clay that is the UCLA Bruins
will take shape only when these questions find their answers. Until
that time they are a team with no name, a squad with no identity.
The only way that they will find one is just to go out and
play.