With UCLA baseball in the home stretch of its regular season schedule, now is an opportune time for a Pac-12 showdown.
No. 2 UCLA (34-11, 16-5 Pac-12) travels to No. 7 Arizona State (29-15, 14-7) for a pivotal three-game series that could turn the tide in the conference.
The Bruins are atop the conference standings with only 11 games remaining in the season, but the Sun Devils are right behind them. Arizona State trails UCLA by two games and could overtake the Bruins with a sweep this weekend.
“First and second place in the Pac, it’s gonna be a big series,” said junior left fielder Ty Moore. “So everyone’s gonna watch.”
With Arizona State’s move from Packard Stadium to Phoenix Municipal Stadium this season, there might be more watching than if this series was played at ASU’s old stomping grounds. The former spring training home of the Oakland Athletics has a capacity of more than 4,000 additional fans compared to Packard Stadium.
“They always draw good crowds, there’s a lot of energy out there when they play at home and they always have a good ball club,” said Moore, UCLA’s top hitter this season with a .363 batting average. “Year in and year out, they always have good players, good records.”
One place in which Arizona State certainly has a good record is its new home, where the Sun Devils are 21-8 this season.
“We know they’re gonna be a very good offensive team,” said coach John Savage. “They know how to play their ballpark – it’s an offensive ballpark for the most part.”
The Sun Devils rank No. 19 in the nation in batting average, which suggests that they are a very good hitting team. However, their No. 84 ranking in on-base percentage tells a different story. This disparity means that ASU hitters don’t exhibit a lot of patience at the plate and don’t draw a lot of walks, where they rank No. 224 nationally. For comparison’s sake, UCLA is No. 56 in batting average, No. 40 in on-base percentage and No. 63 in base on balls.
That will make it very important for UCLA’s pitchers to control the game on the mound and try to get ASU hitters to chase pitches out of the strike zone. The Bruin pitching staff has the No. 2 earned run average in the nation and is No. 3 in strikeout-to-walk ratio, which bodes well for a matchup against a strong offensive team in a hitter-friendly ballpark.
And if ASU does force Savage to go to his bullpen early in the game, he has multiple options to turn to, including Tuesday’s starter Cody Poteet for several innings, if needed. The junior has pitched out of the bullpen several times this season after switching starting spots with freshman Griffin Canning, who now starts in Poteet’s former spot on Sundays.
“It’s definitely exciting to still be an option out of the ’pen,” Poteet said. “I guess one of the cool things about my role … I have the ability to get the first 21 outs of the game when needed and I have the ability to get outs 23 and 24.”
No matter which out is being recorded, the stage is set for a clash of conference powerhouses in the desert with the Pac-12 title potentially on the line.
Contributing reports by Matthew Joye, Bruin Sports senior staff.