UCLA baseball seeks to turn season around with upcoming UC Riverside series

Amid their worst start in six years, the Bruins will take on a winless opponent.

UCLA baseball (2-3) will host UC Riverside (0-4) for a three-game series at Jackie Robinson Stadium starting Friday. A year after going a perfect 8-0 in midweek games, the Bruins dropped two midweek contests Tuesday and Wednesday to fall below .500 heading into their weekend series.

UCLA has used five different starting pitchers in its first five games of the season, all of whom have put together outings of three or more innings while giving up two runs or less. In total, the starters have allowed four runs over a combined 24.2 innings.

Head Coach John Savage said all the starters have put together strong performances to start the season, but the Bruins will likely utilize a four-man rotation the rest of the season.

“One of (the five starters) who go to the bullpen, they’ll help our (bullpen),” Savage said.

Taking the mound for UCLA against UC Riverside will be the same three pitchers that started the first series of the season – sophomore right-handers Jake Brooks and Max Rajcic on Friday and Saturday, respectively, followed by redshirt sophomore right-hander Kelly Austin on Sunday.

Freshman right-hander Thatcher Hurd – who started Wednesday’s game against Omaha – delivered 11 strikeouts while giving up one run in his debut start for the blue and gold.

Although the freshman may not get playing time over the weekend, he said he is looking forward to seeing the Bruins get back on track.

“We’re all approaching this weekend with optimism,” Hurd said. “We can turn our season around so fast. (We’ll) just keep working at it and I think we will be alright.”

A bright spot in the offense has been freshman outfielder Malakhi Knight. The Washington native is leading the team in several categories with a team-high .368/.500/.684 slash line.

Knight echoed Hurd’s sentiments about the importance of the team staying together, knowing that it has the talent to get the job done.

“We need to put these games in the past and regroup – come together and just play how we know we can,” Knight said. “It’s been a rough start, but we all know that we’re way better than this.”

The last time UCLA faced UC Riverside was in 2020 when it swept the Highlanders to open its season.

Savage said he knows the Bruins will only get better with the more games they play and the more work they put in.

“We got to continue to have (good) starting pitching and find roles in the bullpen that can square things away,” Savage said. “There is a lot of work ahead of us and that’s going to be the fun part.”

First pitch for Friday’s contest takes place at 6 p.m., followed by afternoon start times for Saturday and Sunday’s games at 2 p.m. and 1 p.m., respectively.