| Baseball |
|---|
| Oregon — 6 |
| UCLA — 9 |
This has been one of UCLA baseball’s most incredible seasons played at Jackie Robinson Stadium.
With a school-best 27-game win streak, multiple prospective MLB draft picks and multiple electric comebacks, this has been an incredible season that the Bruins have played at the stadium.
The Bruins baseball team (46-5, 26-1 Big Ten) concluded their final homestand with a game for the ages as they took on the Oregon Ducks (36-14, 18-9 Big Ten) on Sunday, May 10 at Jackie Robinson Stadium. With the 9-6 win, UCLA has not dropped a single series at home or at all this season.
In celebration of the final homestand of the season, a pre-game ceremony was held to honor the graduating seniors and multiple of the seniors got reps in through the bullpen and were in the lineup. However, they will undoubtedly play a major role in the team’s playoff journey.
The Bruins were spectacular in the game, demonstrating their resilience as they face Washington to end the regular season and head into the playoffs looking to gain a NCAA College World Series title.
In attendance was UCLA alum and former San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals shortstop Brandon Crawford, who is a two-time World Series Champion (2012, 2014), three-time All-Star, four-time Gold Glove Winner and one-time Silver Slugger award winner.
When asked about being back at Robinson Stadium, he said, “It’s cool to be back. I haven’t been here in a while, so I definitely wanted to get a chance to see these guys and see Roch, obviously. There’s been a lot of hype around him and obviously for good reason … just cool to be out here and talk to these guys.”
The starting pitcher was junior Landon Stump, who pitched 2.2 innings with a respectable three strikeouts and only one earned run. He had very good control of his changeup and fastball, only drawing two walks. His outing to end his final home start of the season was a vast improvement from how he started the season, where he seemed to struggle with command and high rates of contact.
This game started electrically, with Stump’s first pitch crushed to the center field wall, with junior center fielder Will Gasparino making a leaping catch to rob a home run to start the game.
In terms of offense, the Bruins struck first with an RBI single by junior third baseman Roman Martin, which drove in junior left fielder Dean West.
However, that would be their only run scored until the sixth inning. Between the first and sixth innings, the Bruins lineup was absolutely carved by the Ducks’ starting pitcher, Michael Gosztola.
Gosztola was pumping out gas, relying on his fastball, sinker, sweeper and slider, which generated nine strikeouts throughout his outing.
Gosztola only began to somewhat falter in the bottom of the sixth inning, when he faced one of the most feared hitters in all of college baseball — junior shortstop Roch Cholowsky.
Before, it looked like the Bruins would not be able to begin to make up for the five-run deficit created in the fourth inning — the Ducks put up four unearned runs against the Bruins and made it a 6-1 ballgame.
But then, Cholowsky showed everyone at the stadium that the Bruins’ bats had life left in them after all, signaling that the Bruins would not go out without a bang. On a 2-1 count, Cholowsky blasted a solo home run to left field, cutting the deficit to three but also establishing the tone for one of the most thrilling comebacks of the season.
After the homer, the Bruins scored runs in every inning, building up momentum for the explosive eighth-inning rally that completely reversed the trajectory of this game.
The inning started off with a groundout, a single and a strikeout. Off of two outs, the Bruins needed to be near perfect if they wanted to deal any damage.
But the term “deal damage” is an understatement for what happened in this inning. All five runs in this inning came after the Bruins had two outs. After Gasparino struck out, junior catcher Cashel Dugger hit a single, followed by redshirt sophomore pinch-hitter Aidan Espinoza with yet another single. This was followed by a first-pitch HBP by junior pinch runner Phoenix Call, loading the bases.
Then stepped up the man of the game, West. West had already been having a spectacular day up to that point as he robbed a grand slam and went 3-4 at the plate.
But then he suddenly went 4-5, hitting an electric grand slam to dead center, which sent all of Jackie in a frenzy as he turned the game upside down and made the score 9-6.
When asked about his grand slam and how he hit it, West said, “Honestly, I’m still blacking out … I was just trying to get a base hit and then that happened, it still hasn’t even registered with me yet.”
This grand slam was especially impactful for West considering he was able to play for the team’s seniors and give them a memory to cherish during their final regular season home stand.
“I love these guys, these guys are my brothers for life … I was just playing for them and for us.”
The Bruins closed out the game with one of the most electric comebacks all season. However, the Ducks’ Drew Smith, the final out of the game, took issue with sophomore pitcher Easton Hawk celebrating after successfully closing out the game. Words and gestures were exchanged between both teams, but either way, the Bruins won the game and took the series. The final score was 9-6.
UCLA baseball head coach John Savage said postgame that he loved that this year’s team was able to have such a challenging matchup, especially going into the postseason.
“I’m always looking for adversity, and you need a lot of different shapes and forms. We got it this weekend, our backs were against the wall, 6-1 in the fifth against a team that’s used to winning … I thought we did a really good job of putting up five zeroes [the five consecutive scoreless innings that UCLA pitched] and scored a bunch of runs there.”
The team will look to close out the regular season with one last series win as they take on the University of Washington Huskies at Husky Ballpark on Thursday, May 14, at 6 p.m. PT.
