Baseball crowns new strikeout leader Trevor Bauer in UCLA’s series win over USC
Junior pitcher Trevor Bauer and the No. 24 Bruins took two of the three games in the weekend series against USC.
By Ryan Eshoff
March 28, 2011 12:48 a.m.
As Trevor Bauer goes, so goes UCLA.
The quirky junior pitcher ““ he of the dirty hat and the idiosyncratic routine ““ was dialed in at the end of last season as the Bruins made a run to the College World Series. Bauer’s up-and-down start to this season coincided with a rough spell for UCLA.
But the right-hander turned in a historic performance on Saturday, as the Bruins appeared to turn their season around.
Bauer threw a one-hit shutout in a 4-0 UCLA win that clinched a series victory for the Bruins (11-8, 2-1 Pac-10) over USC. The Trojans (9-15, 1-2) won the series finale 6-2 on Sunday.
“It was a big weekend for us,” coach John Savage said. “Whenever you start Pac-10 play, and you go on the road and win the series, you feel good about it.”
The Bruins can feel especially good about Bauer, who with 14 strikeouts on Saturday became the all-time strikeout leader at UCLA.
“I come out there with the mentality that I’m going to strike everybody out,” Bauer said. “It helps me go out there and attack people and be aggressive.”
The series victory over USC comes two weeks after UCLA played below its standards in a loss to the Trojans at Dodger Stadium.
But this time around, the Bruins jumped on their crosstown rivals on Friday and Saturday, winning 8-4 the first night behind big offensive nights from junior first baseman Dean Espy and junior catcher Steve Rodriguez.
Then came Bauer’s gem on Saturday, a game in which he took a no-hitter into the eighth inning. After struggling with some technical issues earlier in the season, Bauer had everything working on Saturday.
“I’ve been going through some mechanical problems that were making me inconsistent,” Bauer said. “It was mostly my fastball command that was the biggest difference between previous outings and this outing.”
Even as UCLA got strong performances from its aces ““ fellow junior Gerrit Cole picked up the win Friday ““ the bats finally began to wake from their season-long slumber.
Friday’s win marked the second consecutive game that the Bruins scored eight runs; on Saturday they scored more than enough to support Bauer and got a hit from every player in the lineup.
“We are making strides in terms of being the team that we thought we were at the beginning,” Savage said.
Still, the Bruins were unable to pull off what would have been an enormous start to conference play: a series sweep, on the road nonetheless.
USC star Ricky Oropesa blasted a home run and drove in five runs as the Trojans roughed up UCLA freshman pitcher Adam Plutko.
Because of the way the schedule works out, the Bruins will play more road games than home games in conference play.
“You have a chance to sweep, you obviously would have really got up on some people,” Savage said. “But it’s very difficult to win in this conference on the road, so we feel like we’re off to a good start in Pac-10 play.”
