UCLA Snags Series With 5-2 Win Over Cal
by Ryan Rosenblatt on May 22, 2011 11:54 PM PDT
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If UCLA is learning anything this season it is that they can lose the opening game of a series and still come back to take two of three on the weekend. Well, that and that they have an ace in the waiting for when Gerrit Cole and Trevor Bauer leave. Adam Plutko was on top of his game again and Chris Giovinazzo took to the leadoff spot as they helped lead the Bruins past Cal, 5-2, in the final home game of the season to win the series in front of 1,426 fans at Jackie Robinson Stadium. The win leaves UCLA at 31-20 on the year and 16-8 in the Pac-10, a mere one game behind Oregon St. in the Pac-10. The Bruins are tied with Arizona St. for second place and will square off against the Sun Devils in Tempe next weekend to close out the regular season.
It's not rare for a freshman to hit a wall, but Plutko has not just avoided hitting a wall, he's excelled down the stretch. He's pitching his best in the latter part of the season and that continued today. The freshman tossed eight innings of three-hit ball, allowing just two runs and walking just one to go along with three strikeouts. The win bumped Plutko up to 6-3 on the season and Nick Vander Tuig finished off freshman Sunday with a scoreless ninth inning for his eighth save of the year.
Sunday was Senior Day for the Bruins and the lone senior to play, Giovinazzo, sure made his last game at Jackie Robinson Stadium count. He picked up three base hits in the lead off spot and scored three times, doing exactly what is needed of a lead off hitter. Dean Espy picked up three hits of his own, scoring a run and driving one in. Cody Keefer added two hits and a RBI, while Pat Valaika moved up to the five-spot in the order and had a hit, walk, run and RBI as part of the 12 hit UCLA performance.
It wasn't the brightest of start for Plutko. He hit the first batter of the ballgame and after a sacrifice bunt, he surrendered a double that scored a run. Before UCLA even had a chance to bat they were already trailing.
UCLA had an answer in the bottom half of the first and it started with a Giovinazzo singled. A sacrifice bunt moved him to second and a ground out moved him to third, giving Keefer the chance to pick up a key two-out hit. That's exactly what he did, driving the first pitch he saw to left for a single to score Giovinazzo and tie the game at one apiece.
The next inning UCLA had their chance to add to their lead with two on and one out, then with the bases loaded and two outs, but they left them there. That wasn't the case in the third when Espy started the frame with a double and scored on Valaika's single. After a single by Gelalich, Trevor Brown singled to score Valaika and the Bruins were ahead 3-1.
Just like the third inning, the Bruins started the fourth with a double. Two batters after Giovinazzo's lead off double, Espy singled through the left side to score Espt and UCLA led 4-1.
After giving up the run in the first, Plutko was cruising. That was until the fifth when he got behind on a 3-1 count and was made to pay for it in the form of a solo homer to right field. Plutko didn't panic though. He retired the next six batters he faced and didn't allow a man to reach second base until he got the hook after the eighth inning.
In the bottom half of that eighth inning, the Bruins added to their lead and again it was Giovinazzo at the center of it all. He led off the inning with a triple and Beau Amaral followed with a RBI single. All Vander Tuig had to do was finish things off in the ninth, which he did, and UCLA were Sunday and series winners.
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Glad our Baseball team came out on top of this series
Hope they build on this weekend’s series win to take on the Sun Devils in next week’s crucial series. Let’s keep those bats warm and smoke ’em!
Pac 10 Championship Up For Grabs
Oregon State has to be heavily favored to win it with their final series against Oregon, but bragging rights are at stake and Oregon’s season is a success if they spoil Oregon State’s bid.
The winner of the UCLA/ASU series could determine the Pac 10 Champ. Sweep the series against ASU, and there’s nothing but sweetness left in a season that has often been bitter sweet.
A Couple of Other Things...
The grab by Vander Tuig and double-up was huge and a great play.
Ryan – did the fact that Eric Jaffe ended up at UCLA factor in at all to the tension between the 2 teams? Just curious. While on the subject of Jaffe, what is his role next season? The guy is a hoss physically.
I don't think the Jaffe thing helped
but it is pretty far down on the list of reasons there was tension.
As for his role, we’ll see how he does in the offseason. He’s clearly physically talented, but he struggled to find the plate even in bullpen sessions. If he can get that down though he would be a scary good closer.
Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I tweeted my followers to ask which I should take
by Ryan Rosenblatt on May 23, 2011 7:42 PM PDT up reply actions
I would have let Pounder close it out
Three hard knocks to start the 9th. The grab by Nick was huge. Otherwise it’s up the middle, a run scores and runners are at the corners with no outs. And frankly, history being history . . .
I wouldn't move Cole to 3
I wouldn’t be surprised if Cole had the worst run support of any starter throughout the season. I might have considered moving Cole and Bauer around to take some pressure off of Cole. Bauer could probably handle it, but it would be difficult to mess with what has been a sure thing on Saturday.
I wonder if Plut has benefited from the new bats. He doesn’t seem to record many KOs or GOs and a number of those outs were fly balls deep to left.
If Bauer is proof of anything it seems to be the value of a good bender.
If I got to the CWS, I’d want to ensure that Bauer got the extra start.
True
I think Savage would consider that and depending on how the regional lines up, it may be better to let Bauer go game 1 in case you need him later in the regional since he throws so much and could have a faster turn around. No question the bats have helped Plutko, although he has improved throughout the season in Ks. He’s been lucky with a .240 babip but he is a fly ball pitcher so he could run a lower babip than normal, and the outfield defense is good. I’m not sure what his hr/fb% is, but it has to be really lucky. For a flyball pitcher to give up .19 hr/9 (when he throws Sunday day games) screams of good fortune. Assuming UCLA is the #2 or 3 seed in the Fullerton regional, I doubt we see any change in the rotation. Hope an opponent who hasn’t seen Gerrit before can’t touch 95+ and I think we’d all agree that we’d rather see Bauer pitch Saturday against Fullerton.
It's Going to Come Down to the Bats & Execution
Cole seems to settle in after the first inning. He’s an emotional guy, and frankly, it’s one of the things that I like best about him.
I think it would help him greatly if he knew he had some margin for error. He’s probably thinking that he has to be as controlled as Bauer because of the lack of run support, and I don’t think that is his style. Aggressive batters (stop taking first ptich strikes when the pitcher is throwing nothing but), lay down the bunt when called upon to do so and clean up the base running errors.
Aside from the occassional brain fart, this is a very solid defensive team, and they’ve got the ability to hit. But they tend to put themselves behind in the count by overthinking and as a result they fail to capitalize on opportunities. And I think it helps a guy like Cole even if he knows you’re making contact and taking the opposing pitchers deep in the count,
Maybe Cal is a better offensive team, but I doubt it. However, if they were going down, they were going down swinging. TB had one of his lowest KO tallies of the year against them. They seemed to be swinging at everything that was thrown at them.
I wish TB could throw batting practice. They’d be ready for anything.
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