Bauer breaks Pac-10 single-season strikeout record, keeps UCLA's season alive with 3-1 win over Fresno State in NCAA regional
Junior pitcher Trevor Bauer celebrates after UCLA defeated Fresno state 3-1 at Jackie Robinson Stadium.
By Daily Bruin Staff
June 4, 2011 7:33 p.m.
With his team’s season on the line, UCLA baseball coach John Savage couldn’t think of any better person to be on the mound than Trevor Bauer.
“I think he might be the best Saturday starter in the history of college baseball,” Savage said of his Saturday starter of three years, who is expected to be selected in the top 10 of Monday’s MLB draft.
Striking out the side on three different occasions and breaking the Pac-10’s single-season strikeout record in the process, Bauer kept UCLA’s season alive Saturday with a 3-1 win over Fresno State.
Although it was likely Bauer’s last start at Jackie Robinson Stadium, it may as well have been any old game for the recently named Collegiate Baseball Player of the Year.
“It wasn’t any different for me,” Bauer said. “It was another Saturday 2 p.m. start against another good team.”
Those Saturday 2 p.m. starts against good teams have earned the quirky, dirty-hat-wearing junior from Valencia quite a reputation. He’s shot up the projected draft boards over the course of the season, at times jumping over teammate Gerrit Cole ““ still considered by many the favorite
to go No. 1 overall. With Saturday’s win, Bauer improved to 13-2 on the year and now boasts a 1.25 earned run average.
With No. 17 UCLA’s (34-23) struggles at the plate this season, Bauer has had little room for error. He shut out the heart of Fresno State’s (40-16) order, with its three, four and five hitters going 0-for-12.
“What separates him is he can throw three pitches for strikes on any count,” said Fresno State coach Mike Batesole, who coached the Bulldogs to a College World Series Championship in 2008. “When you can do that in college baseball, you have a chance to win a lot of games.”
Whether it be a start that sent his team to the finals of the College World Series in Omaha a year ago or an outing in early March at Cal Poly, it doesn’t matter to Bauer. Fresno State junior Dusty Robinson has as many home runs on the season as the entire UCLA team, but he was rung up three times by Bauer.
“I really kind of compete with myself to execute pitches,” he said after Saturday’s win. “I try to play a faceless opponent. That’s what we talk in our program, playing the game and not the opponent.”
The UCLA bats went off for 11 hits Saturday, a far cry from the four-hit performance in Friday’s loss to San Francisco to open the regional. Savage, though, wasn’t pleased with the 14 Bruins he saw left on base.
UCLA now awaits the loser of Saturday’s late game between San Francisco and UC Irvine. Regardless, the Bruins will take the field Sunday at 2 p.m. with freshman Adam Plutko toeing the rubber. Plutko is 6-4 on the season with a 2.16 ERA but was roughed up for 11 hits and six runs in his last outing, a 10-5 loss at Arizona State. In order for UCLA to advance to the super regional level, it must win two games Sunday, followed by the “if necessary” game Monday.
