Bruin baseball drops exhibition game in ninth inning to NC Dinos

The Bruins held their own against Korean Professional Baseball’s NC Dinos Tuesday.

No. 21 UCLA baseball (3-5) entered the ninth inning tied before the Dinos put up two to take the exhibition game by a score of 4-2.

Wednesday’s game was the closest the Dinos have played over the course of their NCAA tour. They have seen success against a collection of California college teams, going 3-0 against Cal State Fullerton, USC and UC Irvine by a cumulative score of 21-3.

Junior left fielder Brett Stephens led the offensive attack for UCLA. The left-handed hitter notched three hits, including a game-tying home run to left-center in the eighth inning.

“You never really expect to hit home runs at night in our park,” Stephens said. “It’s kind of heavy air.”

Coach John Savage said he could only think of a handful of left-handed hitters who had hit home runs to the opposite field like Stephens did. He called the junior’s at-bat the most impressive of the Bruins’ season thus far.

“(Redshirt senior right fielder) Eric (Filia) has had some impressive at-bats, but that at-bat was a pro at-bat,” Savage said.

Stephens said the baseballs used in the game might have helped him out. The teams played with KBO baseballs, rather than NCAA baseballs.

For only the second time this year, Savage used his bullpen the way he wanted to. As Savage had planned before the season, redshirt freshman Nathan Hadley handled the sixth, sophomore Jake Bird the seventh, redshirt junior Tucker Forbes the eighth and freshman Brian Gadsby the ninth.

“We have roles and we’ve had a tough time getting to roles,” Savage said. “We’ve always scripted (bullpen usage) like that and it’s pretty much gone as scripted for a long time, but so far it hasn’t (this year).”

Hadley, Bird and Forbes all delivered scoreless frames, but Gadsby surrendered two runs in the ninth and got tagged with the loss.