#14 UCLA Baseball To Play UC Irvine in a Freeway Series
The teams will play Friday and Sunday at Jackie Robinson Stadium while Saturday's game will be played in Irvine.
This weekend, the UCLA baseball team will face off against the UC Irvine Anteaters. This weekend’s series is slightly unique because the middle game of the series will be played at UC Irvine rather than all three games being played at one site. First pitch for tonight’s game is 5 pm PT and, while it won’t be televised, it will be streamed.
Last Time Out
Tuesday night’s game was a tale of three innings.
In the top of the second, Loyola Marymount scored a pair of runs on an error, a double, an RBI groundout, and an RBI bunt which went for a base hit. Those were the only runs Bruin starter Sean Mullen gave up.
A quality start occurs when the starting pitcher pitches for at least six innings and allows three earned runs or fewer.
On Tuesday, Mullen threw 7-1/3 innings and allowed no earned runs and just the two unearned runs. So, he definitely gave the Bruins a quality start.
The good news is that the UCLA offense only left five runners on board in the first five innings, but the bad news is that means they didn’t have very many scoring opportunities in those innings.
But the Bruin bats came alive in the sixth. Matt McLain, Mikey Perez and Pat Caulfield all singled in the inning. In Caulfield’s case, it was an RBI single that scored McLain. Carson Yates laid down a sacrifice bunt which scored Perez. A throwing error resulted in Yates heading to second and Caulfield to third with only one out and the game now tied 2-2. Kyle Karros hit a grounder to short which scored Caulfied and Yates scored on wild pitch to give the Bruins a 4-2 lead after six innings.
In the eighth, the Bruins picked up an insurance run. Josh Hahn pinch-hit for Caulfied and drew a two-out walk. Then, Yates launched an RBI triple to right that scored Hahn to put the Bruins up 5-2.
Meanwhile, Kyle Mora, who had entered in the top of the eighth closed out the game with a 1-2-3 ninth inning for his first save of the season.
UC Irvine Anteaters
UCI opened the season at home last weekend against the Washington Huskies and the Anteaters swept the series to start the season 3-0. On Friday, Trenton Denholm, who will face UCLA tonight, faced six batter in a 32-pitch first inning that sent him to the showers early, even though he only gave up one run in the inning. It’s not clear if UCI head coach Ben Orloff was using Denholm as an “opener,” or if he just didn’t have his stuff that night. Regardless, the UCI bullpen held to three runs over the next two innings and a bottom of the ninth rally sent the Anteaters home happy.
Neither their Saturday or Sunday starters gave up an earned run last weekend to Washington.
So, this series suddenly looks tough after the Bruins struggled against USF last weekend.
Jarrod Karros takes the hill again tonight instead of Zach Pettway. Hopefully, the bats are starting to come around.
#14 UCLA Baseball (2-2)
Opponent: UC Irvine Anteaters (3-0)
Game Time: 5:00 pm PT, Friday, February 26, 2021
Where: Jackie Robinson Stadium, Los Angeles, CA
Projected Pitching Matchups:
Friday, Feb. 26 - 5:00 pm PT
UCLA - Jared Karros, RHP, So. (0-1, 5.40 ERA)
UCI - Trenton Denholm, RHP, Jr. (0-0, 9.00 ERA)
Saturday, Feb. 27 - 2:00 pm PT
UCI - Peter Van Loon, RHP, Jr. (1-0, 0.00 ERA)
UCLA - Jesse Bergin, RHP, Jr. (2020: 4-0, 1.27 ERA)
Sunday, Feb. 28 - 3:00 pm PT
UCLA - Nick Nastrini, RHP, Jr. (0-0, 4.26 ERA)
UCI - Nick Pinto, LHP, Fr. (0-0, 0.00 ERA)
Media:
Live TV/Audio: uclabruins.com with Tim Wilhelm
Live Stream: Pac-12.com and the Pac-12 Now app
Live Stats: UCLA StatBroadcast
This is your UCLA vs. UCI game one open thread.
Go Bruins!
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