Broadcast Information
 
Radio - KUCI 88.9 FM with Mark Roberts and Tim Becwar All games also available live on the internet at kuci.org and ucirvinesports.com
 
Live Stats - Live stats are available for every Anteater baseball game through ucirvinesports.com and the UCI Sports Front Row app.
 
Around The Horn
 
16-5 - The Anteaters are 16-5 all-time in the state of Texas last visiting in 2015 winning 2 of 3 at UTSA. UCI is 26-17 all-time against Texas schools taking 6 wins off Baylor, 5 from Houston, 4 from UTSA, 3 each from Texas and Dallas Baptist, a pair from Lamar, and 1 over Texas Southern

2 - The 'Eaters have used at least 2 catchers in all seven games to this point in the season including three catchers twice. Combined, the position has hit .384 (10-for-26) with 2 doubles, a triple, and 2 RBI, and thrown out 1 of 6 attempted basestealers

47 - In coach Gillespie's 11 seasons at UC Irvine, the team has 47 wins over ranked programs, and has played a ranked team 103 times including postseason action. At home, the 'Eaters are 10-2 all-time against ranked non-conference foes including series wins over No. 1 TCU, No. 8 Washington, and No. 23 Baylor
 
The 'Eaters took have taken both series to start the season two games to one dropping Nevada and now Gonzaga. In 12 weekend series last season that went three games, UCI was 4-8 in them. It's the first time since 2013 the 'Eaters have won each of its first two series doing it against No. 23 Baylor and Cal in that season.

Following Tuesday's game, UC Irvine will have exclusively played teams from the Mountain West and West Coast Conferences through the first eight games of the season.

Andre Pallante was masterful and earned his first career Big West Pitcher of the Week honor. He set career highs striking out 12 over seven innings, and allowed just one hit to win his second game of the season. Dating back to 2017, he's shutout opponents for 14 straight innings.

Pallante's 12-strikeout performance was the first for an Anteater pitcher since 2014. Andrew Morales struck out 12 in a 1-0 Super Regional win at Oklahoma State. UCI didn't have a 10-strikeout performance last season as Elliot Surrey's 10 vs. CSUN in his final collegiate start in 2016 was the last occurrence.

Louis Raymond followed up Pallante's gem with one equally as good on Saturday. Raymond went the full nine innings for his first career complete game to win 6-1. For Raymond, its his first career complete game, and he fell just two outs shy of a shutout which would have been the team's first since Morales' outing vs. OK State. Raymond impressed by completing the game in only 83 pitches. He is also 1 of 20 pitchers to toss a complete game in the nation through this season's first two weekends.

UCI rode its pitching staff over the weekend as its three starters allowing two earned runs between them over 20 innings. Anteater pitchers have struck out 10 or more in four starts this season compared to seven in the entire 2017 year.

UC Irvine tops the Big West with 66 strikeouts from its pitching staff. It's also allowed a conference-low .193 opposing batting average and 42 hits. Anteater pitchers stand second in ERA (2.71), saves (3), and batters struck out looking (17).

UCI's 4-0 shutout win in the opener was its first shutout in 73 games dating back to April 29, 2016, a Friday night shutout of Cal State Fullerton. It's the fourth season opener UCI has won with a shutout joining 2008 vs. Nevada, 1992 vs. LMU, and 1972 vs. UCLA

Anteater hitters batted .290 over the weekend raising its season average to .258. For the second straight weekend, no home runs left the field while the 'Eaters had one more extra-base hit than the previous weekend thanks to Jacob Castro's first career triple. The team's 11 hits on Saturday were its highest in a game this season, and 10 were registered as singles.

Konnor Zickefoose and Jacob Castro each had five hits to lead the team. Castro is the team's leader in AVG (.538), on-base (.625), and slugging (.846). Zickefoose remains the only 'Eater to reach base in all seven games in 2018.

Ryan Fitzpatrick is atop the team in RBI with five tied alongside Zickefoose. Both also share the team's highest current hitting streak at six straight. Dating back to 2017, Fitzpatrick has reached base in 15 straight games, and his three multi-hit games leads the team.

Two Anteaters share on-base streaks of six games when recording an official at-bat. Nick Anderson is one after a go-ahead RBI double in the eighth on Sunday. Brendan Brooks has done the same, and he has three RBI which have all either tied the game or given the Anteaters the lead.

The Anteater defense didn't commit its first error until the fourth game of the season at LMU committing three. UCI didn't commit its first error at home until the sixth game and has committed just the one home error to this point.

Catcher Matt Reitano got his first career start at third base in Saturday's win. Reitano had to make just one play fielding a ground ball and firing over to first in the fifth inning.

The Anteaters have been without senior third baseman Parker Coss for the last four games. He injured his hand following the opening weekend. He is currently day-to-day.

Elsewhere on the injury report, the 'Eaters have yet to see the services of pitchers Cole Spear and Evan McMillin. UC Irvine is optimistic McMillin will be available over the weekend at TCU.

UC Irvine has already seen the return of four players that missed all or a considerable amount of the 2017 season:

Pitchers Alonzo Garcia and Sean Sparling were shut down after their first few outings in 2017 - Sparling has returned allowing one earned run over 3.1 innings including a spotless inning on Sunday where he was in line for the win as the game entered the ninth - Garcia returned Tuesday getting the start and working 4.1 innings against the Lions allowing one earned run while walking two and striking out two over 73 pitches.

Catcher Griffin Mazur struggled through a foot injury in 2017, but has returned to see action in all seven games this season earning one start and recording a pair of hits, a hit by pitch, and a sacrifice hit.

Reliever Dylan Riddle was also on the shelf after injuring his shoulder in an offseason accident prior to the 2017 season. He's been flawless in two appearances this season getting all three batters he's faced out on just 11 pitches.

The team hit .274 a year ago, second-highest in the Big West, and posted the conference's best on-base percentage of .364, but had a .371 slugging percentage that ranked as the lowest. The Anteaters finished near the top in many offensive categories placing top three in runs, hits, walks, sacrifice flies, and hit by pitch recording the most plate appearances of any Big West squad.

On the pitching end, UCI struggled with the highest ERA in the conference at 5.35 in 2017 and opponent batting average of .299 while issuing 253 walks, highest in the Big West and the program's third-most in a single season.

Anteater defense did not commit an error to open the season, 1 of 11 schools to complete its opening weekend series without an error. The 109 chances without an error were the fifth-most of those 11 squads.

The defense did stand out committing just 48 errors, the second season in program history where the 'Eaters were charged with less than 50 errors, while leading the conference in putouts and chances finishing with a .978 fielding percentage. The team also turned 55 double plays, second-most in the conference and in program history, and had the second-best percentage of throwing out basestealers throwing out a Big West-best 29 runners.

The Anteaters finished 2017 seventh in the Big West Conference going 9-15, and a 23-33 overall record marks just the second losing season since the program returned in 2002.

Head Coach Mike Gillespie returns for his 31st and final Division I season and 11th with the Anteaters where he is currently the program's winningest coach holding at 366 UCI wins, 1,129 overall

The Anteaters were picked to finish sixth in the Big West according to the preseason coaches poll, however they did land a first-place vote.

The 2017 Anteater schedule included six NCAA Tournament teams and two programs to reach the College World Series. The 2018 schedule has five tournament teams from a year ago on the slate as well as four conference champions overall. Three schools show up in the Baseball America Top 25 to start out the season including perennial midweek foe UCLA at 13, No. 11 Cal State Fullerton who will visit Anteater Ballpark for a series, and TCU at No. 7 that UC Irvine will travel to after winning their series in 2017 with TCU ranked No. 1 in the nation.

The Anteaters are 10-2 in Anteater Ballpark against non-conference ranked opponents winning two of three against No. 1 TCU this year adding to the series win over No. 25 Cal in 2006 and sweeps of No. 23 Baylor in 2013 and No. 8 Washington in 2005.

Since Head Coach Mike Gillespie took over in 2008, UCI has played 103 games against ranked opponents, 81 coming during the regular season, and the 'Eaters have won 47 of those games. Since 2002, UC Irvine is 32-41 overall against ranked Big West programs
 
SAN DIEGO STATE AZTECS
San Diego State has started out 2018 strong at 5-2 coming off a 42-win season in 2017 that sent them to the postseason and the Long Beach Regional. The Aztecs opened 2018 with an emphatic sweep of UC Santa Barbara, and just tackled its own Tony Gwynn Legacy tournament falling to No. 4 Arkansas while taking down Arizona in extras and Grand Canyon by one with a Monday night matchup with Michigan to go. Tuesday's game will be SDSU's first on the road this year. UCI and SDSU split the series in 2017 with each squad winning on their home diamond. SDSU leads the all-time series, 55-35-1, including 8 wins in the last 11 matchups.


Thus far, SDSU is hitting .275 averaging over five runs a game behind Chase Calabuig's .393 mark clubbing 2 HRs and 7 RBI. The Aztecs have really come on from the mound with a 2.08 ERA through the first seven games ranking in the nation's top 20 allowing 6.1 hits per game and striking out 11.1 batters per game. The bullpen has been lights-out allowing five earned runs over 34.2 innings earning four of the team's five wins. Daniel Ritcheson has made SDSU's lone midweek start where he allowed one earned over 4.1 innings in an extra-inning loss to USD.
 
TCU HORNED FROGS
UC Irvine and TCU reprise its matchup from 2017 that saw the 'Eaters upend the No. 1 Horned Frogs to win the series in Anteater Ballpark. UCI will now travel to the 2017 College World Series participant on Fort Worth where they went 28-4 last season en route to a 50-win campaign. TCU enters the week ranked No. 7 and has had their hands full winning 2 out of 3 at Grand Canyon and home last week to LBSU.

The Horned Frogs lose some of their parts from a year ago, but are still hitting .282 averaging nearly seven runs a game. The pitching has stood tall with a 2.86 ERA as familiar faces Jared Janczak (0-1, 2.77 ERA) has struck out 14 in 13 innings and Nick Lodolo (2-0, 3.18 ERA) has issued just one walk through the early going. The bullpen has shut down its opponents allowing just three earned runs and 13 hits over their 32.2 IP of work.