After another rough weekend, the UCLA baseball team hosts Loyola Marymount again at Jackie Robinson Stadium tonight at 6 pm PT. Tonight’s game won’t be televised, but it will be livestreamed. After losing the first two games of the weekend against Stanford, the Bruins were able to salvage a game from the series on Sunday when they defeated the Cardinal, 6-1.

Last Time Out

Mikey Perez hit a two-out, three-run home run in the top of the first inning on Sunday against Stanford. That hit proved to be the game-winner as the Bruins got eight innings of shutout ball from starter Sean Mullen and Michael Townsend before Max Rajcic finally allowed a run in the bottom of the ninth.

Mullen threw 6-1/3 scoreless innings and allowed just two hits and three walks while striking out seven en route to his sixth win of the season.

The Bruins added insurance runs in the second on a sacrifice fly by Kevin Kendall, in the eighth on a Kyle Karros RBI single and in the ninth on a solo homer by Matt McLain as UCLA won this game easily by a score of 6-1.

Loyola Marymount Lions

Tonight’s game is the third of four games against LMU this season. UCLA has won the previous two meetings, both of which were played at home like tonight’s game. Since they last met, the Lions have won just four of the ten games they plated.

Tonight, Nick Nastrini (2-2, 5.20 ERA) will get the start for the Bruins while Junior lefty Sean Paquet (0-1, 8.59 ERA) will go for the Lions. Looking at the ERAs for the two starters, it may just be the Night of the Quick Hook at the Jack as neither head coach will want to fall into too deep of a hole if his starter gets into trouble early.

Both pitchers have had some control issues as opponents’ batting averages aren’t very high for either pitcher. Opponents are batting just .144 against Nastrini while LMU’s opponents are hitting just .222 against Paquet. Nastrini has walked 25 batters in 27-2/3 innings while Paquet has walked 8 batters in 7-1/3 innings so far.

If either guy can control the strike zone, it will likely go along way towards a win tonight. I’ve got the Bruins tonight by a score of 8-4 as “Nasty Nick” holds it together for four-plus before turning over to the UCLA bullpen.

#17 UCLA Baseball (17-11)

Opponent: Loyola Marymount (11-18)
Game Time: 6:00 pm PT, Tuesday, April 13, 2021
Where: Jackie Robinson Stadium, Los Angeles, CA
Live Stats: UCLA StatBroadcast
Live TV: None
Live Audio: uclabruins.com with Tim Wilhelm
Live Stream: Pac-12.com and the Pac-12 Now app

Projected Pitching Matchup:
UCLA - Nick Nastrini, RHP, Jr. (2-2, 5.20 ERA)
LMU - Sean Paquet, LHP, RJr. (0-1, 8.59 ERA)

Game Notes:

UCLA

This is your UCLA baseball vs. LMU open thread.


Go Bruins!

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