Following 14-run victory, UCLA baseball to host 3 Southern California teams

After scoring more runs Tuesday night than they did in either of their first two series, the Bruins will welcome three opponents to Jackie Robinson Stadium.

No. 8 UCLA baseball (5-3) has a trio of contests ahead of it in the College Baseball Classic, starting with a Friday night date with Pepperdine (1-6). Saturday will feature another matchup with Cal State Fullerton (3-4) – the Bruins’ midweek opponent – and UCLA will conclude the weekend with a Sunday afternoon bout against crosstown rival USC (3-3).

The first of the three weekend games will mark senior right-hander Zach Pettway’s first start of 2021 after he was sidelined to start the season because of an undisclosed injury. In his season debut Feb. 26, Pettway pitched a scoreless sixth inning, striking out two UC Irvine batters and having the third he faced – who reached base on a hit by pitch – erased on a caught stealing.

Coach John Savage said sophomore right-hander Jared Karros – the Bruins’ Friday night starter to open the season – will be the first in relief of Pettway – the Bruins’ Friday night starter in 2019 and 2020 – who will be on a tightly watched pitch count.

“(Pettway will) be anywhere between 45 to 55 pitches on Friday, I would think, and we’ll see where that goes,” Savage said after UCLA’s 14-1 win over Fullerton. “Karros will piggyback him on Friday night, and we’ll just have to see where it takes us.”

The Bruins are coming off a midweek game in which they posted a crooked number on the scoreboard in four of the first five innings, hit two of their three home runs on the season and only allowed one unearned run.

One of the two round-trippers came off the bat of junior first baseman Jack Filby when he deposited a 2-1 offering from Titan starter Christian Rodriguez over the right-field wall in the bottom of the first inning. Filby – who finished the game 1-for-3 with a pair of walks – said the team is still coming into form, learning from its games.

“We’re just continuing to grow as a team, continuing to grow experience, having fun and learning to play with each other,” Filby said. “We got a great group of guys with a lot of talent, and I’m excited to see where we’ll be week in and week out.”

Pepperdine will be riding a five-game losing streak when it rolls into Westwood on Friday after being swept by No. 7 UC Santa Barbara in a four-game set to close out February. The Waves were outscored 33-15 over the course of the three days and have allowed nearly twice as many runs as they have scored this season.

On Sunday, UCLA will match up against its first Pac-12 opponent of the campaign in USC, which took its opening series against Loyola Marymount, a team the Bruins beat Feb. 23. The Trojans followed it up by dropping two out of three against Cal Poly, a team the Bruins will see starting March 12 in San Luis Obispo.

Like UCLA, USC has also been hurt by the unearned run this season, with 12 of the former’s 29 runs allowed being unearned while the latter has had 10 unearned runs on 28 conceded.

Junior right-hander Sean Mullen said the blue and gold has been working out some of its early-season kinks and has found a more successful winning formula.

“We ironed some things out that I think (were) definitely needed for our team,” Mullen said. “Just based from an upperclassmen standpoint, I think the energy in the dugout, the energy in the bullpen, the ability to take a punch and throw a punch has been really big the last two days. I think we found something that works for (the) mentality for our team – sticking with that is going to be huge for us this weekend.”

Sunday’s game is the only scheduled meeting between UCLA and USC besides the conference series later in March. Mullen said while his team likes to keep things business as usual regardless of its opponent, playing the “guys across town” makes the games a little more enjoyable.

“It’s always fun playing against USC – it’s even funner beating them,” Mullen said. “In all reality, it doesn’t really matter who’s in that other dugout if we play our game and play our style. With our attention to detail, we can line it up with anybody. With USC you could say there’s a little extra want to, just based off the history and the rivalry and all that good stuff, but we can’t treat it any differently, and we’re going to go about our business the same way.”

First pitch of the College Baseball Classic is set for 5 p.m. on Friday, with 2 p.m. and 1 p.m. start times Saturday and Sunday, respectively.