Esh Prints: High hopes for this season’s edition of UCLA Friday night baseball

I remember Friday nights as a kid; we all do.

Friday nights meant not only the end of the school week, not only a chance to stay up past 10 p.m., but also the greatest stretch of TV that we knew. Friday night meant, among the other members of ABC’s TGIF lineup, “Boy Meets World.”

The last couple of years, Friday nights have meant Gerrit Cole taking the mound for UCLA baseball.

The big right-hander was a staple of the Bruins’ starting rotation each of the last three seasons, and last June was the No. 1 pick in the MLB draft by the Pittsburgh Pirates. It’s his own personal version of “Boy Meets World.”

All good shows must come to an end, and Cole was never one to be short on entertainment value. He was a hard-throwing strikeout machine who often pitched with plenty of emotion.

It’s Opening Night of the baseball season at Jackie Robinson Stadium last Friday night (typing that line just got the Katy Perry song stuck in my head), and there is no Cole in sight to help cope with this chilly February evening.

UCLA loses its opener to Maryland 2-1. Sophomore Adam Plutko, the new ace of the staff, went seven shutout innings and struck out 10 in an outing that was all very Cole-like.

The rest of the script was also eerily similar of recent Bruin baseball: a lack of clutch hitting from an offense that didn’t provide enough run support, and a shaky bullpen that coughed up a lead in the ninth inning that led to the defeat.

But even though the pitching performance may have mirrored that of a Cole or a Trevor Bauer, this team still misses that pair of pitchers.

For the last couple seasons, Cole and Bauer have been the face of UCLA baseball.

No questions asked. Those guys were the horses, and they were willing to embrace that role.

That guy doesn’t exist on this team, at least not yet.

Plutko has the talent, but he has yet to consistently prove that he has the charisma and experience. There just wasn’t that buzz in the stadium on Friday like there was when Cole used to pitch.

I was excited to see the guy who grills the sausages next to the snack shack, but that one guy on this team whom everyone’s excited to see just hasn’t emerged yet.

I’m optimistic, though. There’s a ton of talent on this team, too much talent to lose any more 2-1 games to teams of Maryland’s caliber.

The outfield of Cody Keefer, Beau Amaral and Jeff Gelalich has been around for three years and are primed to all have productive seasons, providing they don’t miss departed hitting coach Rick Vanderhook too much.

The youthful talent on this team is exciting and intriguing, and it’s just one weekend into the long baseball season. Plenty of time to establish an identity.

One of the more beautiful aspects of college baseball is the ability to have a TGIF mentality.

It’s not like the daily grind of professional baseball: Fridays mean the start of the new series, they mean you will see the best pitcher from either side, and they mean hope is in the air.

For those reasons, Fridays are like mini Opening Nights.

Sure, at the first one of the year ““ the actual Opening Night ““ it felt a little strange to not have Cole on the mound, to not have Bauer spending the night before his Saturday start chasing rogue balls down the third-base line.

But there are plenty of nights to come.

College baseball games, at least of the UCLA variety, tend to attract a good number of kids.

This is their TGIF activity, and hopefully the Bruins can deliver as the year go on.

Yeah, they’re young, yeah, they’re inexperienced, but no better time than the present for these boys to meet the world.

If you want to join him, a guy and a girl at a pizza place, email Eshoff at [email protected].