UCLA baseball drops third straight loss to CSU Fullerton
Luke Persico’s seventh-inning sacrifice fly made Tuesday night a one-run game before UCLA eventually fell to Cal State Fullerton. (Joseph Chan/Daily Bruin)
By Jason Drantch
April 9, 2014 2:17 p.m.
Coming off back-to-back weekend series losses against Arizona State and Long Beach State, UCLA baseball was in uncharted territory.
The team found itself outside of the Baseball America Top 25 for the first time since May 22, 2011, snapping a 42-week streak of being ranked.
On Tuesday, the newly unranked Bruins (18-13, 6-3 Pac-12) traveled to Fullerton looking for a win against the No. 18 Cal State Fullerton Titans (17-11), but they came up short at Goodwin Field in a 4-3 loss.
The loss marks three straight games that the Bruins have dropped, as well as the fifth of their last seven.
“We need to play better,” said coach John Savage. “There’s a lot of baseball to be played and that’s really how we’re looking at it. We’re not looking at it like we’re in a slump.”
The Bruins had their chances against the Titans, but could not get the big hits in the key situations that their offense thrives on.
UCLA failed to execute with runners in scoring position as they left a total of eight runners on base, including the bases loaded twice, in the second to fourth innings.
“We had 10 hits tonight and three runs, and they had six hits and four runs,” Savage said. “They did a better job of utilizing their hits and we didn’t execute enough on offense. … We still got to come up with big hits, and we got to come up with more situational-type hitting.”
With the bases loaded and two outs in the second, senior outfielder Brian Carroll grounded out to end the inning. In the same situation in the fourth inning, freshman second baseman Luke Persico ended up with the same result as Carroll.
Persico said he was unable to get his bat inside on the pitch, which resulted in the groundout. He did, however, come through in the seventh with a sacrifice fly to make it a one-run game.
“I just had to stay within, know what the situation was and know that we needed to score that run to keep ourselves in this game,” Persico said. “I just stayed short (with my swing) and put it in play.”
Even though the Bruins left runners at the corners in the third, redshirt sophomore infielder Justin Hazard got UCLA’s only scoring hit of the game with a two-RBI single up the middle with two outs and two strikes.
“I knew the guy wasn’t going to give me anything really good to hit with first base open, so I was just trying to be short and use the middle of the field, honestly,” Hazard said. “I was just able to knock it through up the middle.”
Freshman pitcher Grant Dyer gave up all four runs in five innings pitched, but Savage praised the walk-on.
“He’s probably one of the best freshman pitchers on the West (Coast). I think he’s proven that,” Savage said. “He gives up three runs in the fifth and that’s really the difference in the game, … but we think we got a gem.”
Despite the poor play recently, Savage thinks that his team will bounce back this weekend in Arizona and start its streak anew.
“Forty-two weeks is a long time,” Savage said. “We’ll get back in (the poll) this year, we know that.”
