Will It Be Deja Vu When UCLA Baseball Visits #9 Long Beach State?

Last Tuesday night, it took UCLA 11 innings to topple then 12th-ranked Long Beach State. Despite the loss to the Bruins, the Dirtbags moved up to #9 in the rankings this week.

In between, UCLA dropped 2 of 3 to #1 Oregon State. On Friday, the Bruins lost 4-2 in ten innings despite a solid pitching performance from Griffin Canning, who struck out 10 over seven innings. Saturday, the Bruin bats were alive when they scored 7 runs in the first three innings while receiving 6 shutout innings from Moises Ceja en route to a 7-1 win.

Meanwhile on Sunday, it was a classic pitching dual between Jon Olsen and OSU’s Jake Thompson. Olsen threw 6-1/3 scoreless innings and Thompson held the Bruins scoreless for 6-2/3rds of his 7 innings until he gave up a double to Jack Stronach which scored Sean Bouchard.

Jake Bird gave up the tying run in the top of the eighth on a sacrifice fly with a runner on third. Then in the ninth, Adley Rutschman walked and advanced to second when a ball got away from catcher Will McInerny. Rutschman then broke the tie on a single up the middle.

In the bottom of the ninth, the Bruins rallied to load the bases with two outs. But, Jeremy Ydens struck out swinging to end the threat and Oregon State took the game 2-1.

To quote my favorite 20th Century philosopher, “it’s deja vu all over again” tonight as Justin Hooper (0-0, 4.15 ERA) and AJ Jones (1-1, 2.16 ERA) face off for the second time in eight days. There’s no TV again tonight, but you’ve always got John Ramey and Tim Wilhelm and, of course, there are the live stats. All of your info on how to follow tonight’s game is listed in the right sidebar.


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


Go Bruins!!