The Oregon baseball team travels to southern California this weekend to play defending College World Series champion UCLA for a three-game series. The Ducks (36-16, 14-10 Pac-12) lost two out of three to Arizona State in their last Pac-12 matchup last weekend, resulting in a tie for third place in the conference standings.
UCLA (23-26-1, 10-14) hasn’t replicated its success from a season ago, but as Oregon third baseman Mitchell Tolman said, you never know when a team is going to come alive.
“I know they’ve got great pithcing and I know they’ve struggled a little bit offensively, but hitting comes and goes,” Tolman said. “You never know when you could run into a team and they put up 10 runs in a game or something. I think we just gotta play to our ability.”
The Bruins have lost nine of their last 12 games, including six straight, but still stand in the way of an unachieved landmark for the Ducks: winning a conference road series.
Oregon is 3-9 in conference road games this season, and UCLA provides the team its last opportunity to take a regular season road series.
“The atmosphere is different when we’re not at home,” shortstop Mark Karaviotis said. “Maybe a little less comfortable. I felt like we played some close games that could’ve gone either way, and just haven’t gone in our favor on the road thus far.”
At Arizona State, poor pitching and defense contributed to runs for both teams, as the Sun Devils outscored the Ducks 21-16. Neither Jeff Gold nor Brando Tessar was sharp, but Oregon’s bats were steady.
“I’m happy with the level of consistency of our offense,” head coach George Horton said.
Much of that offense has been courtesy of catcher Shaun Chase, who leads the Pac-12 in home runs with 10, after hitting two in Oregon’s 14-8 victory over Pacific on Tuesday.
Chase and Oregon’s bats will be met by James Kaprielian (6-5, 2.63 ERA) on Friday. The sophomore right-hander is tied for the Pac-12 lead in strikeouts with 89, 49 of which have come in conference play (fourth in conference). Grant Watson (4-8, 3.75 ERA) will start Saturday and Cody Poteet (3-4, 3.95 ERA) will be on the mound Sunday.
Offensively, UCLA is led by Shane Zeile, whose .332 batting average is good for seventh in the conference. Zeile is the only player on UCLA hitting above .289. Power hitting is not a specialty for the Bruins either, and the team ranks tied for last in the Pac-12 in home runs with seven. On the other hand, Oregon is first with 25.
Oregon’s probable starters are Tommy Thorpe (8-4, 2.40 ERA), Gold (9-1, 3.06 ERA) and Tessar (4-1, 2.81 ERA).
Follow Madison Guernsey on Twitter @guernseymd