BERKELEY “”mdash; It’s been a while.
For the UCLA baseball team, it’s been a while since the team won this many games in a single season ““ more than three decades.
Perhaps more importantly, it’s been a while since UCLA lost a Pac-10 game this season.
On Sunday, No. 10 UCLA (41-11, 16-8 Pac-10) routed Cal 11-2 to complete the Bruins’ third consecutive conference sweep. UCLA put seven runs on the board through the first two innings, providing enough offense for starter Rob Rasmussen and ensuring that the crowd at Evans Diamond never got going.
The Bears (27-22, 11-13) didn’t record a hit off of Rasmussen until the fifth inning, when catcher Eddie Hsieh homered to left. UCLA’s junior lefthander worked six and two-thirds innings, giving up just one run on two hits while striking out six. It was evident from the get-go that Rasmussen was on his game.
“To get a two, then to get a five, I think that set the tone,” UCLA coach John Savage said. “And Rasmussen was in complete control out there.”
With the win, Rasmussen improved his record to 8-2. For a while though, it appeared as if the start could be more historic, as the Cal portion of the scoreboard continued to show nothing but goose eggs.
“You look up there and you see the zeroes, but it’s not something that you think about in the fourth inning,” Rasmussen said. “When you get the home run (by Hsieh), it’s like “˜Aw crap.’ The first hit has to be a home run, so you lose the no-hitter and you don’t get the shutout or anything like that.”
The Bruins’ lineup ““ which recorded 31 runs over the weekend, their best output in the Pac-10 all season ““ was led by first baseman Dean Espy, who picked up an RBI on a bunt single in the first and blasted a two-run home run to left-center in the second.
“We wanted to score first, hands down,” Espy said. “The coaches asked me to bunt in the first ““ you don’t see much of that from a No. 4 hitter.”
It was Espy’s first start of the weekend, but he made his presence felt in all three games.
On Friday ““ an 8-7 win ““ the sophomore hit a pinch-hit RBI single in the eighth, and he came off the bench again on Saturday for a two-run triple as part of a 12-4 victory.
The Bruins extended their winning streak in Pac-10 to nine games, with all of the wins coming on the heels of three losses to Arizona State.
“It’s very hard to sweep in the Pac-10, and to do it three times in a row is really a testament to our team,” Rasmussen said.
This weekend’s sweep almost wasn’t. The series opener felt as if Berkeley’s swirling winds were blowing the tide of the game all over the place. The lead changed hands three times in the final two innings before the Bruins were able to eke out the one-run win.
“Friday’s game was something else, we were down to our last pitch multiple times,” Savage said. “You just got to give a lot of credit to the players for sticking together, and they played better each day. It was a great weekend for the Bruins.”
With reports by Blair Angulo, Bruin Sports senior staff.