Bruins lose two games to Titans within five hours

By Jeff Agase
Daily Bruin Staff
[email protected]

It’s hard to believe that a baseball team can lose two
games in ten innings.

Even more unfathomable is doing it in just two. Replaying the
final inning of a game that ended a month ago in protest, UCLA
struck out three times in the bottom of the ninth to lose 7-6 to
No. 17 Cal State Fullerton at Goodwin Field.

An hour later, the Bruins (26-32) let the Titans put up an
eight-spot in the bottom of the fifth and couldn’t come back,
this time with a full nine innings. The Titans topped UCLA,
11-4.

Four and a half hours. Two losses. Whiplash doesn’t strike
this quickly.

“We got them out in their inning, but they got us out
1-2-3,” UCLA head coach Gary Adams said.

“I’m a little perplexed (about the second game).
Usually we’d have fought back but tonight it wasn’t
enough,” added.

The Titans (36-17) thought they had already clinched a win on
April 23 at Jackie Robinson Stadium, until UCLA head coach Gary
Adams cited an obscure and almost universally unknown rule to force
a replay of the ninth inning last night.

It didn’t help.

Fullerton reliever Chad Cordero struck out Rashad Parker
looking, Ryan Rasmussen swinging, and Casey Grzecka swinging to
earn Fullerton’s first win of the evening.

Whisler wrote himself into the UCLA record book in the first
inning of the second game. His two-RBI home run over the right
field wall was his 16th of the year, pushing him past Chase Utley
on the single-season freshman home run list.

“I’ve gotten used to the way the game is
played,” Whisler said. “I’m more confident every
time I’m in the batter’s box and more confident in
letting my natural abilities take over.”

The record-setting shot also gave the Bruins one of their few
leads in a game that soured quickly thereafter. The Titans matched
UCLA with two runs of their own in the first, then scored another
after the Bruins put up two more in the top of the second.

Into the fifth inning the teams went, the Bruins ahead 4-3, the
one-run lead coming off a Fullerton error. The Titans needed no
such help in their eight-run fifth, but they got a couple of errors
anyway.

With Wade Clark on the hill and one away, designated hitter
David Fischer tripled to right. A pair of doubles scored two runs
and gave Fullerton a lead it would not relinquish. When Fullerton
was finished extracting all it could, the lead was seven.

Monster innings aren’t anything new to the Bruins, though.
Two weekends ago, they allowed eight and nine runs in the first
innings of the Friday and Sunday games at Arizona.

Both times, they were able to come back.

Fullerton would allow no such shenanigans, though. The Titans
nursed their edge and used five different pitchers to hold UCLA
scoreless in the final seven innings and sweep the season
series.

UCLA finishes its season this weekend with a three-game
homestand against USC. The Bruins need one win out of three games
to clinch the Lexus Gauntlet.