Royer: Sky’s the Limit For UCLA Baseball, 2023 College World Series in the Cards

A healthy pitching staff, combined with an experienced offense, makes the Bruins a College World Series contender in 2023.

Getting overwhelmed by Auburn’s offense in the NCAA Regionals and struggling with pitching depth combined to ultimately cut the Bruins’ season short this spring.

Those two realities were all but inevitable based on what coach John Savage’s squad was faced with down the stretch. However, despite the campaign's end result, new faces stepped up to make an impact and a true offensive core emerged, setting the table for a more robust roster at Jackie Robinson Stadium next spring. Admittedly, an emergent offense won’t do much to fix the pitching woes, but a solution to those is well on its way as well.

UCLA baseball (40-24, 19-11 Pac-12) was bound for a rebuild in 2022 after 10 Bruins were drafted and six others graduated or transferred away from Westwood. Only three batters from the 2021 opening day lineup and one starting pitcher from the initial rotation were still on the squad in 2022. Even the one starter leftover – junior right-hander Jared Karros – was unavailable all season due to a back injury, making the roster-wide changes impossible to ignore.

There won't be half as much turnover heading into 2023, and should key contributors like Karros come back healthy, UCLA is primed to be a true contender moving forward.

In Karros’ absence, right-handers sophomore Jake Brooks, sophomore Max Rajcic, freshman Thatcher Hurd, redshirt sophomore Kelly Austin and freshman lefty Ethan Flanagan became the go-to arms on the mound. And through the first half of the season, the Bruins mowed through opposing lineups.

As of April 1, UCLA ranked No. 1 in the Pac-12 and No. 25 in the nation with 10.7 strikeouts per nine innings. In early March, Hurd was named National Pitcher of the Week by Perfect Game, Rawlings and the NCBWA after two standout appearances versus Long Beach State and Oklahoma, tossing 5.0 scoreless innings against the Beach to go along with 12 strikeouts – the most by a UCLA freshman since Gerrit Cole in 2009.

Freshman left-hander Gage Jump – the No. 1 southpaw in California and No. 45 player overall in the 2021 recruiting class according to Perfect Game – eventually joined the staff after recovering from injury, providing depth and rest that helped the Bruins shoot to a season-high No. 8 ranking in the D1Baseball Top 25 poll.

But as the season rolled along, an injury plague ravaged the Bruins’ pitching staff. Brooks, Hurd and Jump joined Karros on the bench, leaving just Rajcic, Austin and Flanagan as the only starting pitching options left. The latter two spent half of 2022 spotlighting as relievers or midweek starting pitchers for the Bruins, but both had to leap into the weekend rotation as the regular season began to wind down.

UCLA lacked high-impact pitchers when the Pac-12 Tournament and NCAA Tournament began due to the injuries, including another that knocked Rajcic out of the conference tournament. The three starting pitchers joined Alonzo Tredwell, Luke Jewett, Daniel Colwell, Jake Saum and Charles Harrison – who did not even pitch in regionals – as the handful of regular relievers available.

Depth issues showed up both times the Bruins were eliminated – against Oregon State in the Pac-12 Tournament Semifinal and versus Auburn in the NCAA Regional Final. Savage thus had to turn to a host of inexperienced freshman hurlers to carry the load in do-or-die contests, a scenario UCLA’s foes did not let slide.

So with the pitching staff deteriorating, it was actually UCLA’s offense that turned from a massive question mark into one of its largest strengths.

Freshman infielders Cody Schrier and Ethan Gourson shined as mainstays of the Bruins’ lineup, with the former leading the team with nine home runs and the latter setting the UCLA freshman record for most doubles in a season with 23. Sophomores Kyle Karros and Carson Yates turned into gap-to-gap power threats with big run-scoring ability at the plate as well.

Even graduate outfielder Kenny Oyama and graduate first baseman Jake Palmer – who are departing Westwood – glued together the lineup with their high-contact swings and pesky approaches. Junior right fielder Michael Curialle led the team in batting average, hitting .319 in his first draft-eligible year.

Results at the plate varied within the Pac-12 season. The Bruins ranked eighth in the conference with their .279 batting average, but expressed their willingness to get on base in any way possible by ranking third with a .391 on-base percentage.

That kind of efficiency is what helped lift UCLA to its fourth consecutive Regional Final, and looking at the age distribution of the most significant contributors, it could very easily spill over into 2023 in a major way.

Curialle is the only regular member of the lineup who could depart early for the draft, and even then, that would really only leave the Bruins looking for new corner outfielders. Freshman outfielder Malakhi Knight is a shoo-in to fill in at one of those spots after missing most of his first year with a midseason injury, and the other could go to JonJon Vaughns or top local recruit Jarrod Hocking.

UCLA will have to move on to its fourth first baseman in five years, but Savage and assistant coach Bryant Ward always find a way to get top-notch production out of the position.

Schrier accumulated gaudier statistics than recent first-round pick Matt McLain did during his freshman season at Jackie Robinson Stadium, and if the impressive shortstop continues a trend similar to his blue chip counterpart from 2019 to 2021, the Freshman All-American could become an all-time UCLA great.

The lofty expectations will be difficult for Schrier to live up to, but Gourson, Karros, Yates and Knight can help round out the lineup around him and become a bona fide wrecking crew.

The offense, therefore, sits in a comfortable spot heading into the offseason, as does the defense, leaving pitching as the one big missing piece that needs to come together. Luckily for Savage, he may already have everything he needs to fix the production on the mound.

Hurd entered the transfer portal Thursday, which did deal a blow to the staff’s potential ceiling, but should everyone else come back healthy, there will still be plenty of arms to get through a full season.

If any of Rajcic, Brooks or Jared Karros – who are all eligible for July’s MLB Draft – choose to return for another year in Westwood, UCLA could boast the top pitching staff in the NCAA. And even if they don’t, a core of Jump, Austin, Flanagan, Jewett, Tredwell and incoming freshman right-hander Ian Ritchie Jr. – should he decide to stick with the collegiate route – gives Savage plenty to work with.

The Bruins have the talent to be a favorite to hold a homecoming of sorts at next year’s College World Series, a decade after winning the national championship in 2013, but at the moment, it’s all just potential. The 2019 squad was the No. 1 team in the country for months on end, only to fall short of Omaha, so depending on how the rest of the young offseason shakes out, they could wind up soaring even higher this time around.

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