Though this season has been less than memorable for the UCLA
baseball team, the Bruins can still make a considerable impact in
conference play. Though it lost any chance to compete in the
postseason months ago, UCLA can make the road to the NCAA
Tournament tougher for opposing teams by playing the role of
spoiler for the rest of the season. “We definitely want to be
a spoiler,” UCLA coach John Savage said. “We
don’t want to do it year after year, though.” The
Bruins are coming off a thorough 11-1 drubbing of UC Irvine,
Savage’s former team, and are marching into Saturday’s
showdown with No. 21 Stanford (27-18) in Palo Alto with something
they haven’t had in a long time ““ confidence. “We
feel good about how we did on Tuesday,” said Savage.
“We’re just trying to stay on top of our game. We want
to be competitive against Stanford. As always, our goal is to win
the series.” In Pac-10 play this year for the Bruins, winning
a series has been easier said than done. UCLA (12-33) has one
Pac-10 victory in a year when the conference has been tougher than
it has been in the recent past. “There might even be seven
teams from the Pac-10 who play in the postseason,” Savage
said. “It’s as good a league as there is. There’s
just an extreme depth to this league, so it’s extremely
tough.” “It’s what we want, though. We want to
build a team that can be at the top of this league.”
RETURN TO THE DIAMOND: Sean Smith, who sprained
his shoulder against Arizona back in early April, is scheduled to
return to the field this weekend. Smith was one of the best hitters
early on for the Bruins this season. “He’s got the
green light to play,” Savage said. “It really changes
the depth of the infield. With him and Chris Jensen back now,
we’ll start seeing some offense.”