There will be many baseballs flying through the air at Jackie Robinson Stadium this weekend, as UCLA baseball opens up its 2015 campaign.
And with the NCAA’s new flat-seam baseball, some of those balls might actually go over the fence.
UCLA will begin the season by hosting Hofstra, a team that finished with a losing record of 20-24 a year ago and returns only five of its eight starters from last season.
However, the Pride fly on the basepaths. They were the fourth in the country last year in steals per game, meaning the Bruins will have to control the running game to find success this weekend.
“Hofstra has definitely proven to be a very aggressive team, a good, solid running team,” said coach John Savage. “So it’s a threat, there’s no question … If they do get on first, we’ve got to be able to hold, and do a good job of holding runners, and try to minimize one of their strengths.”
For the Bruins, this season will be about returning to full strength.
Despite winning the national championship in 2013, UCLA also finished last season with a losing record of 25-30-1, which can be mostly chalked up to numerous injuries and the loss of multiple key players from the championship team to the MLB Draft.
Now fully healthy with the return of redshirt junior shortstop Kevin Kramer and senior closer David Berg, among several others, the Bruins will finally get a chance to show college baseball just how talented they truly are.
“It’s a confidence booster to have everybody on the field,” said junior outfielder Ty Moore, one of 19 returners from the championship squad. “It helps us statistically and psychologically, I mean knowing that we have a core group of juniors and a couple seniors, and we have talented sophomores and a really talented freshman class, it has to be an optimistic year.”
Winning the national championship put the UCLA program in the national spotlight and with the No. 7 recruiting class in the country according to Baseball America, the Bruins start the year ranked No. 11, the highest of any Pac-12 team.
In fact, of the five official college baseball polls, No. 11 is the Bruins’ lowest rank, as they reach as high as No. 4 in the D1Baseball.com Top 25, while the USA Today Coaches’ Poll has them ranked as the ninth best team in the country.
Unlike in previous years at Jackie Robinson Stadium, there will be a lot more extra base hits with the NCAA’s implementation of the flat-seam baseball to jumpstart offense throughout the game.
On a flat-seam baseball, the seams are lower than on a raised-seam baseball that the NCAA had been using prior, which reduces the drag on the ball, causing it to stay in the air longer when it’s hit. It also makes it more difficult for pitchers to throw breaking pitches, as the seams affect the spin that can be put on the ball. The hope is that this new baseball can counteract the dip in offense that resulted from the use of deadened bats, which were introduced in 2011 in an effort to increase player safety.
“The game changes a little bit, I mean some of those balls that might get hit in the gap, the outfielders aren’t necessarily running under them and being able to catch those (now),” said junior pitcher James Kaprielian. “Now some of those gap shots seem to carry a little bit more, and those are going for standup doubles.”
As a result of this change, Savage said that his team’s focus on pitching and defense has become even more important now than ever before.
“I think you’re gonna see more offensive teams, and we’re gonna be more offensive,” Savage said. “But you better be able to pitch and play defense, or else you’re gonna be in a lot of slugfests.”
With contributing reports by Matthew Joye, Bruin Sports senior staff.