UCLA Baseball Clinches Series Win Over Oregon After Tight Finish

The Bruins won the second game of the Pac-12 weekend series thanks in large part to Max Rajcic's quality start.

(Photo Courtesy of Ross Turteltaub/UCLA Athletics)

Entering the thick of Pac-12 action, the Bruins battled to grab their second-straight win against the Ducks and jump 10 games over .500.

UCLA Baseball (18-8, 5-3 Pac-12) claimed the series against No. 21 Oregon (18-9, 7-4 Pac-12) on Saturday afternoon, flexing their offensive prowess with nine hits to defeat their conference foes 4-3. Redshirt sophomore catcher Tommy Beres had his most efficient day at the plate so far this season, going 2-for-4 and crossing home twice, and eight Bruins total got hits.

"It’s about playing good baseball,” said coach John Savage postgame. “It’s about pitching, it’s about playing defense, it’s about having quality at-bats. Regardless of who we’re playing and where we’re playing, it comes back down to us. It’s important that we play our brand — our style of baseball. So, when we do that, we feel pretty good about it.”

Despite taking the second game of the series, the Bruins fell behind early after sophomore starting pitcher Max Rajcic faced stormy waters in the second following his 1-2-3 first.

Ducks shortstop Josh Kasevich began the frame with a one-out single to center field. Right fielder Anthony Hall then pulled a no-doubt home run that curled inside the right-field foul pole, giving Oregon an early 2-0 lead.

The former freshman All-American Rajcic swiftly shut down Oregon after the troublesome second. Only allowing two more hits — a single in the third and a double in the sixth — Rajcic struck out six batters in 6.0 innings of work — his longest outing of the season and collegiate career — and kept his run tally to just two earned.

“It was a major statement and he knew that he really needed to step up,” Savage said. “The Arizona start (2.2 IP, 6 H, 4 R) was not competitive and we made that pretty clear that it wasn’t competitive. He needed to come out and get back to being Max Rajcic.”

After leaving runners on base in the first and second, the Bruins curbed the trend in the bottom of the third to crawl out the early hole. Beres and freshman shortstop Cody Schrier reached on a single and walk, respectively, and with two outs, freshman second baseman Ethan Gourson laced a line drive into short right field to score the backstop and cut the deficit to one.

UCLA continued to get runners on base just an inning later. Graduate first baseman Jake Palmer chipped a line drive into left field for a single and extended his team-high hitting streak to eight games. The former UC Irvine transfer could not score after advancing to second, however, and was stranded as the score remained 2-1.

Oregon’s starting pitcher Isaac Ayon tumbled through the fifth as UCLA finally took advantage on their third time through the order. Beres led off with a double that smacked against the bottom of the left-center wall and Schrier blooped a single into center to advance the former to third.

With runners on the corners and no outs, freshman center fielder Malakhi Knight hit a bouncing grounder over the third-base bag, scoring Beres from third. Gourson and sophomore third baseman Kyle Karros each earned an RBI on a groundout and sac fly, respectively, giving the Bruins a 4-2 lead.

Freshman left-hander Ethan Flanagan — who has handled high leverage relief outings all season long — relieved Rajcic in the seventh and shut down the Ducks lineup through the eighth. After grabbing the first two outs of the ninth, the Bruins’ lefty gave up two hits and was removed in favor of redshirt sophomore right-hander Kelly Austin.

The JUCO product allowed an RBI single into left field to make it a one-run contest. But Austin battled back, striking out Ducks’ catcher Josiah Cromwick with a breaking ball in the dirt to end the game and win the series.

"We threw the first two sliders and got ahead 0-2," Beres said postgame. "We kept on trying to throw another slider in the dirt to get him to chase, but he kept fouling them off... Coach (Savage) had me go call time and tell (Kelly) to go throw it in the other batter's box... We had (Cromwick) right where we wanted him. He had no shot."

Every batter in the starting lineup besides graduate left fielder Kenny Oyama was able to reach base on a hit Saturday. The 5-foot-2 speedster reached on a walk, though, and he still made an impact in the field after hitting the go-ahead RBI single on Friday.

Oyama caught up to a screaming line drive launched off the bat of Kasevich in the seventh inning, and as he caught the ball, the former LMU transfer’s hat flew off to complete the play in fashion.

"Oregon, they are a really good offense," Rajcic said about his hit prevention postgame. "We had good defense today — no errors. If we can keep on doing that, we'll be a pretty good team."

The Bruins will return to try and complete the sweep of the Ducks on Sunday afternoon at 12 p.m.

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