Strong pitching, hitting lets Bruins take care of Gauchos at home
Senior pitcher Garett Claypool celebrated his eighth victory of the season during UCLA’s 6-2 defeat of UC Santa Barbara Tuesday at Jackie Robinson Stadium.
By Ryan Eshoff
May 18, 2010 9:21 p.m.
It wasn’t the longest outing of Garett Claypool’s career, but the senior right-hander will probably take it.
In his final career regular-season start at Jackie Robinson Stadium, Claypool was limited by coach John Savage to just three innings in UCLA’s 6-2 victory over UC Santa Barbara. He was perfect in those three innings, facing the minimum nine batters and striking out two to pick up his eighth win and lower his ERA to 1.94.
The pitching was strong throughout for the No. 10 Bruins (38-11), as Claypool and seven relievers combined to yield just two runs and five hits to the Gauchos (21-26). UCSB didn’t record its first hit until the sixth inning.
Meanwhile, the Bruins got on the board early as sophomore second baseman Tyler Rahmatulla drove in senior designated hitter Blair Dunlap on a sacrifice fly in the first inning off of Gaucho starter Nick Capito.
UCLA tacked on an additional run in the fifth on a solo home run by outfielder Chris Giovinazzo. By that time, it was a bullpen game the rest of the way, as Capito had also been pulled after three innings. The Bruins put together a four-run rally in the seventh, getting a two-run single from freshman Beau Amaral as well as one RBI each from senior Justin Uribe and Dunlap.
Down 6-0, the Gauchos put together a partial rally in the eighth inning against UCLA reliever Erik Goeddel, before going down in the ninth against closer Dan Klein.
Now the road gets more difficult for UCLA the rest of the season. The Bruins head to Berkeley this weekend, where they will deal with a Golden Bear team that has been playing good baseball.
Their final Tuesday game of the year will be next week at Cal State Fullerton, who has lately re-emerged as one of the nation’s top teams. The Bruins then close out their regular season with a three-game set at home against Washington State.
“You really don’t want to look at the whole standings, because the way it changes week to week,” Savage said after last weekend’s series with USC. “I think (the Pac-10) is the best baseball conference in the country. I think it’s proven out this year, the depth of it, and that all ten teams are really good.”
Compiled by Ryan Eshoff, Bruin Sports senior staff.
