UCLA Baseball Hosts #12 Long Beach State

The Bruin Nine return home tonight after taking two of three from Stanford on the road this past weekend.

Due to the Easter holiday, UCLA and Stanford started their series a day earlier than normal. As a result, the first game of the series was played on Thursday. After the teams split the first two games, they played the rubber game on Saturday.

The Bruins got on the board in the top of the second when Zander Clarke homered. Two innings later, Clarke doubled and came home to score on a Michael Toglia single.

Toglia came through again for UCLA in the sixth when he homered which also drove in Chase Strumpf. That gave the Bruins a 4-0 lead. The Cardinal responded in the bottom of the sixth with a run and then narrowed the gap to just a run in the bottom of the seventh.

UCLA added an insurance run in the top of the eighth on a solo shot by Strumpf, but not even State Farm could help Jake Bird in the bottom of the inning when he walked Stanford’s catcher Maverick Handley to start the inning and followed that up by giving up a hit to Duke Kinamon. Then, with two on and one out, Bird gave up a three-run homer to Matt Winaker. Suddenly, the Cardinal had a 6-5 lead.

Bird would walk the next batter and that would be all for Bird as lefty Nick Schiedler came into the game and promptly gave up a hit to put runners on the corners for the Cardinal. Head Coach John Savage turned to his closer to keep Stanford from doing any more damage and Brian Gadsby got Dan Bakst to ground into a comebacker double play to end the inning.

In the top of the ninth, the Bruins tied the game when Kyle Cuellar, pinch-hitting for Jake Hirabayashi, doubled to drive Curtis Godin in.

Gadsby held the Cardinal scoreless in the bottom of the ninth to force extra innings.

Brett Stephens got the Bruin rally started in the top of the tenth with a double down the right field line which led to Toglia’s second RBI single of the game to give UCLA a 7-6 lead.

It got a little hairy in the bottom of the tenth when Gadsby hit the leadoff batter with a pitch and the pinch runner would eventually advance to third with just one out. But he got the next batter to line out to short and followed that with a grounder to short to pick up the win for UCLA.

Tonight, the Bruins welcome the 12th-ranked Long Beach State Dirtbags to Jackie Robinson Stadium as UCLA starts a four-game homestand. Junior righthander A.J. Jones (1-1, 2.37 ERA) is scheduled to start for Long Beach while lefty Justin Hooper (0-0, 4.97 ERA) takes the hill for the Bruins.

UCLA Baseball (16-16)

Opponent: #12 Long Beach State Dirtbags (22-12)

When: April 18, 2017, 6 pm PT

Where: Jackie Robinson Stadium, Los Angeles, CA

TV/Live Stream: None

Audio: uclabruins.com with John Ramey and Tim Wilhelm

Live Stats: UCLA Stat Broadcast


This is your UCLA Bruin baseball versus Long Beach State open thread.


Go Bruins!!