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Brantley Watson: For a formerly-No. 1 UCLA baseball team, it’s a long fall from the top

Junior left-handed pitcher Rob Rasmussen and the Bruins have had their struggles after a hot start.

By Brantley Watson

May 4, 2010 9:46 p.m.

When it comes to sports, there have always been pros and cons to being on top of the heap.

The positive to being top dog is that everyone is chasing you, looking up at you, and wanting to be you.

The negative?

Everyone is chasing you, looking up at you, and wanting to be you.

At the beginning of April, the UCLA baseball team was top dog.

Not just in the Pac-10, but in the nation.

By April 1, the Bruins had maintained an unblemished record, having won their first 22 games of the season.

Remarkable.

On April 12, the Bruins were recognized as the nation’s No. 1 team for the first time since 2008, when UCLA was the preseason No. 1. But as far as ascending to the No. 1 spot during the season, that was a feat the Bruins hadn’t accomplished since 1997, over a decade ago.

Sweet.

But you know how they say once you reach the top, the only way to go is down? Ever realized that once you reach the peak, staying there is a lot harder than getting there?

Well, if John Savage’s club didn’t recognize it, they certainly recognize now.

After literally tearing through the first part of the season, the UCLA baseball team, to be blunt, has been mediocre at best in their past 19 games, winning nine and dropping 10.

So what happened?

To start off, it pains me to say that the Bruins weren’t taking on the best of competition through their first 22 games.

Consider this: of those first 22 games, only one team that the Bruins faced is currently ranked in the top 25, that being No. 17 Oklahoma, whom UCLA defeated 5-2 on March 14. But of the 10 defeats suffered by the Bruins, eight of them have come against ranked or previously ranked opponents.

Conclusion: The Bruins have been beating up lesser competition and struggling against the best.

The next issue facing the Bruins is the margin of defeat.

UCLA has played in close games and won several of them already this season, but when they lose, it’s by an average of 4.9 runs per game, which I’m rounding to five.

That’s not too good of an average loss margin.

Granted, in their wins this season, UCLA has outscored their opponent by an average of about 5.5 runs, but the Bruins have blown out several far inferior clubs, such as defeating Southern by 14 runs, Bethune Cookman by seven runs, Cal State Northridge by nine runs, Oral Roberts by 16 runs one game and 10 in another, and UC Riverside by 10 runs.

This goes back to my point: UCLA beats up the weaker teams.

The final, and in my opinion, most worrisome issue facing the Bruins was their performance over this past weekend against No. 3 Arizona State.

The Bruins have struggled early in Pac-10 conference play, winning seven of 15 games. Granted, UCLA’s schedule is severely front-loaded and the Bruins have had to face the toughest competition early in Pac-10 play with Stanford, Oregon, Oregon State, Arizona and Arizona State.

But the fact is, UCLA was going to run across these foes regardless, whether it was at the beginning or end of the Pac-10 season.

Although UCLA has won three of their five Pac-10 series so far, they lost to their two stiffest competitors in Oregon and Arizona State.

But what’s even worse is that those conference series losses came on the Bruins’ home field at Jackie Robinson Stadium.

And to add insult to injury, the Bruins were swept and embarrassed at the hands of the Sun Devils over this past weekend in a series that looked to prove conference supremacy.

ASU emphatically settled that debate.

The Sun Devils outscored the Bruins 23-5 over the course of the three game series. In addition, ASU handled the Bruins’ top three pitchers, Gerrit Cole, Trevor Bauer and Rob Rasmussen, with relative ease, including a 12-3 series finale victory in which Rasmussen gave up seven runs in four innings.

Baseball is a tricky sport and losses are inevitable. But after beginning the season with so much hype, so much success, I would hate to have to call this Bruins team a fluke.

As for now, back to the middle of the heap they go.

Hopefully, “they go” doesn’t transform into “where they belong.”

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