One month from today, the UCLA baseball team will play its last game of the regular season.
Before that day arrives, the Bruins will play a remaining schedule heavy on home games, starting this evening.
Next up, UCLA (17-20, 9-6 Pac-10) opens a crucial home stand this evening hosting the No. 17 Oregon State Beavers (23-9, 8-4) at Jackie Robinson Stadium.
So far this season, the Bruins have played a schedule racked with road games. UCLA played 22 of its first 33 games away from home, including trips to the Houston College Classic, Oklahoma and East Carolina before returning home to play its first Pac-10 series versus USC.
For the remainder of the season, the Bruins will only travel outside of California for two weekend series.
With 19 games remaining in the season, UCLA must make every game count to regain national prominence in college baseball.
“At the end of the day, we’ve got to realize the importance of every game and do things right,” coach John Savage said.
While the Bruins have the opportunity to ignite a late-season surge at home, they still have some tough competition waiting down the road.
Oregon State, college baseball’s national champions in 2006 and 2007, will undoubtedly provide some stiff competition to test UCLA.
The Beavers enter the weekend with a .977 fielding percentage, which ranks first in the Pac-10 and seventh nationally. They also rank fifth in the nation in hits allowed per game at 7.79.
The Bruins boast some impressive statistics of their own, especially in the pitching department. The UCLA pitching staff ranks second in the Pac-10 in total strikeouts and strikeouts per nine innings, with 351 total and an average of 9.72.
UCLA will send its regular weekend rotation to the hill for this series, which has delivered consistently solid performances throughout the season.
Freshman right-hander Gerrit Cole will start for the Bruins on Friday. In his last appearance, Cole tallied a career-high 13 strikeouts in UCLA’s 4-2 victory over Washington a week ago. He is tied for third in total strikeouts in the Pac-10. Freshman right-hander Trevor Bauer will start for the Bruins on Saturday, and junior right-hander Charles Brewer will round out the weekend on Sunday.
The Bruins went 4-0 last week before losing their midweek road game on Tuesday night against UC Riverside by a lopsided tally of 17-6.
Despite the score, UCLA had some good at bats from senior first baseman Cody Decker, who belted his 13th homerun of the season, and redshirt junior center fielder Blair Dunlap, who registered the only other multi-hit effort.
Savage said that the Highlanders played solid, aggressive baseball, and the Bruins simply got outplayed. He said his team needs to use this loss as a motivating force in the last leg of the season, because every game carries mounting significance.
“We got beat up pretty good (on Tuesday),” Savage said. “Now we’ve got to use this and get back on our feet.”