This week, Stanford baseball will close out their regular season with a road series at UCLA. Stanford comes in at 20-29 overall and 11-16 in the Pac-12 while UCLA comes in at 16-33 overall and 6-21 in the Pac-12. Game one will be on Thursday at 7:00 PM PT. Game two will be on Friday at 6:00 PM PT. Game three will be on Saturday at 12:00 PM PT. The first two games will air on Pac-12 Los Angeles while the third game will air on Pac-12 Networks. All three games will air on KZSU radio.
Stanford is currently 8th in the Pac-12 and needs to win one game to clinch a spot in the Pac-12 tournament in Scottsdale, Arizona. The Pac-12 tournament has nine teams, with two teams not making the cut.
Probable pitchers: The only listed matchup that has been confirmed is Thursday: Stanford sophomore righty Matt Scott (4-8, 5.27 ERA, 96K) vs. UCLA junior righty Luke Jewett (1-5, 4.46 ERA, 66K).
Last time out: On Monday, Stanford fell to Cal on the road by a final score of 5-3. Stanford was unable to hang onto an early lead.
RECAP: Stanford BSB falls to Cal on Monday night
On UCLA: The Bruins have struggled mightily this season as their record shows. They’re last in the Pac-12 and have been eliminated from Pac-12 tournament contention for at least a little while now. They’ve lost four games in a row and have really had a total disaster of a season. That said, they do have a winning record at home (12-11). It’s on the road (4-20) and neutral site games (0-2) where they have truly been hideous.
Freshman infielder/designated hitter Roman Martin is the top contact hitter for the Bruins with a .306 batting average to go along with three home runs, 22 RBIs, a .469 slugging percentage, and a .384 on base percentage. The top power hitter is a tie between freshman infielder Roch Cholowsky and junior infielder Duce Gourson. Cholowsky is batting .284 for seven home runs, 28 RBIs, a .483 slugging percentage, and a .389 on base percentage. Gourson is batting .281 for seven home runs, 24 RBIs, a .491 slugging percentage, and a .429 on base percentage.
As for their pitching, UCLA as a team has a 5.19 ERA while their opponents have a 4.44 ERA. Their pitching has not been strong and then while they do have some guys who can hit, they don’t have a lot of weapons on offense. Considering that, it’s not a surprise they have struggled.
Keys to the series: For Stanford, the first thing they need to do is get Malcolm Moore going. He’s the top offensive weapon they have and this is a series that has all the potential to be really good for him. If he can get on base, get some hits, and hit at least a home run or two, that would be huge for the offense. When he gets going, everyone feeds off of that.
The second thing Stanford needs to do is play smart baseball. They are the better team and as such should win provided they play smart. Make good decisions with their base running, play sound defense, swing at the right pitches, etc. So long as Stanford plays smart and does what the coaches tell them to do, they should be fine. If they play sloppy and allow unforced errors, this series could get interesting.
Finally, Stanford’s pitching needs to step up. UCLA often has their bats go cold, so it shouldn’t be hard for Stanford to contain them at the plate. Even so, Stanford needs their pitching staff both starters and bullpen to pitch well. Otherwise, UCLA could get some confidence and win the series.
Prediction: This is honestly a tough series to predict. Stanford has lost seven games in a row and is in quite a funk. UCLA is actually ok at home and that makes me think UCLA could win this series. On the other hand, UCLA is terrible. Their record speaks for itself and so on those grounds it’s hard to pick UCLA to win the series. Given Stanford is coming in with the better record and a trip to the Pac-12 tourney on the line, I’ll say Stanford finds a way to take two out of three games.
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