Broadcast Information
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Video
Spectrum Sports Hawai'i will broadcast the first two games in Hawai'i Friday and Saturday between the 'Eaters and Rainbow Warriors with links found on ucirvinesports.com
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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
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Game Updates
All UC Irvine baseball games can be followed via live stats with links found on ucirvinesports.com and the UCI Athletics app. Each game is also live tweeted at @UCIbsb
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Around The Horn
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9th -
Ben Orloff begins his head coaching career in 2019 as the
9th head coach in program history taking over for Mike Gillespie who led the program to 393 of his 1,156 career wins. For the program, it's the 41st season of Anteater baseball, 33rd in Division I, and 18th since the program returned in 2002.
25.2 -Â
Andre Pallante tossed seven scoreless innings Friday night upping his shutout streak to
25.2 consecutive scoreless innings setting a new program record. Andrew Morales held the previous mark at 23 set in 2014.
Trenton Denholm hit 20.2 IP earlier this season making four streaks of at least 20 innings in the program's history
2 -Â The Anteaters have now been saddled with
2 cancellations due to weather after dropping a contest at Missouri State and now a midweek meeting with Michigan.
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The 'Eaters have now won both Big West awards for
2 straight weeks as
Andre Pallante and
Brandon Lewis each picked up their second awards of the season
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UC Irvine won its weekend series against Washington State making the 'Eaters 6-0 in weekend series. The 'Eaters improved to 5-1 against Pac-12 opponents this year winning both weekend series.
UC Irvine outscored Washington State 17-6 despite being out-hit 23-22. The Anteaters are hitting .245 as a team and .266 in the month of March where the team has won 10 of 11 games.
Brandon Lewis led the charge over the weekend hitting .500 with five hits, five runs scored, a pair of home runs, six RBIS, and a pair of walks for good measure, leading or shared for the lead on the team in each category on his way to his second Big West Field Player of the Week honor. Lewis had his third game of the year with five or more RBIs on Sunday
Lewis also slugged two HRs in a game for the second time in four games. Lewis became the sixth Anteater with multiple multi-HR games over a career and fourth to accomplish that in the same season. One more HR and he'll join just four other Anteaters to slug 10 or more HRs in a season as he sits five HRs behind the all-time single season mark of 14 set by Cody Cipriano
Mike Peabody continued his tear going 4-for-9 with a pair of doubles and reaching base seven times in 12 appearances. He provided a clutch three-run double that proved to be the difference in Friday night's win, and he's now hitting a cool .515 in the month of March (17-for-33)Â and .452 overall which ranks fourth in the nation
Andre Pallante extended his marvelous stretch of pitching tossing seven shutout frames against Washington State helping lock up a second straight Big West Pitcher of the Week honor and fourth in his career. He allowed just two hits building off his one-hit performance the week before, and has now built a 25.2 IP shutout streak, the longest in the program's history topping Andrew Morales' mark of 23 IP set in 2014 and fourth-such streak of 20+ scoreless innings in UC Irvine baseball history
The rest of the Anteaters have some impressive streaks going as well starting with
Jake Palmer who is now hitting .297 with 23 walks, fourth-most in the nation. He's reached base in 19 straight games along with a modest six-game hitting streak. He had a streak of five games with an RBI snapped, but still has an active seven-game streak of scoring a run.
Brandon Lewis is on his tail with a 16-game streak of reaching base in addition to a six-game hitting streak, 10 straight road games with a hit, and four straight games with a run scored.
Mikey Filia has reached base and scored a run in six straight games. His six-game RBI streak was recently ended, but he does have a hitting streak of six games on the road. Filia also scored all four times he reached base during the last series.
Mike Peabody can extend an on-base streak to 10 games in his next appearance.
On the mound,
John Vergara has now thrown eight inning of scoreless ball to begin his career after appearing twice over the weekend for an inning each.
Taylor Rashi also pitched twice picking up his sixth save, 14th-most in the nation, and raising his shutout streak to 16.2 innings. The bullpen has been fantastic thus far going 5-0 with a 2.73 ERA
Anteater starters have been masterful to this point of 2019.
Tanner Brubaker collected his second quality start of the year scattering eight hits over 6.2 IP staying long enough to get the win.
Trenton Denholm maneuvered through a shaky outing to improve to 4-0 and set a new career high striking out 10 Cougars, the 84th 10-K game for an Anteater pitcher in program history. The rotation of Pallante-Brubaker-Denholm has tossed 100.1 IP in their 17 starts to the tune of a 2.33 ERA, 10-2 record, and 96 strikeouts. The Anteater staff ranked seventh in the nation in hit allowed per nine innings (6.62), walks allowed (2.70), strikeout-to-walk ratio (3.49), and four shutouts alongside the 11th-best ERA at 2.70 and the fourth-best WHIP of 1.04
Some Anteaters stepped up big including
Griffin Mazur who scored and had two hits for the 'Eaters Saturday evening.
Sam Ireland was also inserted in Saturday's lineup and produced an RBI single in his first career at-bat in Anteater Ballpark.
Brendan Brooks had his first day off Saturday, but came up huge off the bench with a two-run, pinch-hit single to give the 'Eaters the lead for good.
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The Anteaters remain ranked jumping three spots to 19th in Baseball America's poll. Elsewhere, the 'Eaters remain 23rd according to Perfect Game and the NCBWA, but hike a couple spots to 21st according to D1Baseball.com, and they continue to receive votes in the ESPN/USA Today Poll. Collegiate Baseball Newspaper has the Anteaters ranked highest of all the polls at 18th. UCI has been ranked in all polls this season after not receiving national recognition since 2015
The Anteater fielding has improved now third in the conference committing just five errors in the 11 games thus far in March. Anteater pitchers added a pair of pickoffs to their resumes with
Jordan Bocko catching Missouri State off second and Pallante picking the Red Storm off first.
UC Irvine scored a program record 13 runs in the 10th inning of Saturday's 17-4 victory at Utah Valley. It's the 13th such inning with 10 or more runs scored with the previous high for an inning being 11 runs achieved four times. UCI sent 18 hitters to the plate hitting two home runs, walking six times, and collected six hits.
The Anteaters will be featured on ESPN3 this season four times confirmed with four more Wild Card options a possibility. UCI's Friday and Saturday home matchups with Long Beach State in April and UC Davis in May are set for ESPN3 treatment. Additional Friday and Saturday night games could be added to the road series at CSF and the home series against Cal Poly.
The ninth head coach in program history,
Ben Orloff returns to the Anteater dugout for a sixth year, but first at the helm. Even though he is the NCAA career and single-season record holder in sacrifice bunts, don't expect to see his the Anteaters bunting their way around the bases.
"You don't have a style, you adjust to your players," the head coach stated recognizing the talent and pop his lineup brings. "Offensively, we have some power bats that are looking to hit in the middle of the lineup withÂ
Konnor Zickefoose,Â
Brandon Lewis, andÂ
John Jensen. Any of those guys can lift a double or leave the yard so there's potential for the big inning and we look to capitalize on that. A big part of the offense will be an emphasis on walking more, strike zone management, raising that slugging percentage. We'll walk more this year than we ever have in the last five years."
"
Alonzo Garcia could be a big bounce back guy that's had a good career as an Anteater, but has been hurt in recent years. He could step into a big role and will be very valuable with the way he pitched over the fall and winter"
"Vergara has interesting potential, but he's been out the whole fall. He only threw three innings in the fall, didn't really get to see him, redshirted last year at Glendale CC, and had a decent summer with the Conejo Oaks. He's kind of a wild card and an intriguing arm, looking forward to seeing what he brings to the fold."
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Mikey Filia is a guy that will step into a much bigger role. He's bided his time over the last three years and now he should be an integral part of the team's success."
The 2019 Anteaters are a squad comprised of players that have a lot of college baseball experience and have put in a lot of time with the Anteater program. Twenty of the 2019 Anteaters are upperclassmen with 14 as juniors and six seniors including graduate student and starterÂ
Louis Raymond. Overall, 14 Anteaters have put in at least three years with the program including seven into now their fourth year.
The Anteaters will play 10 games against the Pac-12 in 2019, eight of which will be in Anteater Ballpark starting with the opening series against Washington fresh its first College World Series and returning their top four hitters. The 'Eaters end non-conference play with the other Pacific Northwest foe as Washington State plays a weekend series at Cicerone Field. UCLA and USC are usual midweek matchups. UCI is currently 5-1 against the conference winning each weekend series and pushing the 'Eaters to now an 86-70 record against the Pac-12 since 2002.
Other historically prominent baseball programs dot the Anteater schedule starting with trips to Rice and Missouri State. Missouri State is coming off its third straight regionals appearance, second 40-win season in those years, 36 conference wins in the last two years, and are looking for its sixth trip to the College World Series. Topping the tough road slate is a return trip to Utah Valley who stole the series at Anteater Ballpark in 2018. A new face in the midweeks is projected Big Ten champ Michigan. The Wolverines start the 2019 ranked as high as No. 17 and have finished in the conference's top two in each of the last two years including a 40-win season. UCI ventures to the Big Ten near in May during the midst of Big West play traveling to Iowa. The premier series in Cicerone Field features the class of the Big West in St. John's. A program that consistently puts up 40 wins every season and is coming off back-to-back regional appearances is stacked on the mound led by one of the premier Friday night matchups in the nation this season when 2018 National Pitcher of the Year finalists square off inÂ
Andre Pallante and SJU's Sean Mooney.
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SAN DIEGO TOREROS
San Diego baseball has returned to form and in pursuit of its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2013. The Toreros are 17-7 with a 3-3 conference record posting wins over Missouri State, Coastal Carolina, Minnesota, Indiana, SDSU, TCU, CSF, and a pair against St. John's. USD even put up 31 runs over UC Riverside earlier this year as its 3-0 against Big West foes. USD was projected to finish fourth in the 10-team WCC
The 2018 Toreros dropped to its worst record since 2011 with a 23-32 mark faring well against the Big West, but UCI completed a sweep in the two matchups to lead the series 56-47-1 with the 105th matchup coming Tuesday, the 52nd in Anteater Ballpark where UCI holds a slight 26-24-1 edge
USD has excelled on offense hitting .298 to lead the conference where it also tops in runs per game (7.5), hits (242), and a .410 on-base percentage that is 10th in the nation. USD lacks the power with just seven HRs, but Shane McGuire's blistering .400 average and .506 on-base percentage, and 16 or more RBIs from seven different Toreros make the lineup potent from top to bottom
The pitching has fared well with a 4.00 ERA allowing as many hits as the 'Eaters' staff, but over five walks a game has hindered them. Jack Dolak, who leads the team with 10 appearances, will get his first start Tuesday with a 3.86 ERA, and the team is the 45th-best fielding squad in the nation to back him up. Four different Toreros have recorded a save as well with the strikeout leader, Travis Kuhn, out of the pen among them.
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HAWAI'I RAINBOW WARRIORS
Conference play kicks off for the second year in a row with UC Irvine and Hawai'I meeting. The Rainbow Warriors took two of three from UCI in 2018 and are 5-4 against the 'Eaters over the last three seasons. Prior to that, UCI had dominated the series all-time going 24-6 and winning the first nine matchups after UH joined the Big West. The 'Eaters have a slim 14-9 edge all-time on the island
The 2018 Rainbow Warriors were 27-24 playing 31 games at home, but dropping to seventh in the Big West standings. UH was projected to finish a distant sixth in the Big West this season.
2019 has seen Hawai'i struggle a tad going 10-14. The first 20 games were on the island where it earned single wins from Portland, Oregon, and Bakersfield each in four-game series, splitting four games with Iowa, and most recently making its first trip stateside dropping three of four at Ohio State. Hawai'I begins Big West at home with UCI and UC Davis before travelling to UC Riverside. CSF will visit UH in Honolulu, and then the Rainbow Warriors take a two-week trip to face USD, CSUN, Cal Baptist, and Cal Poly. The season concludes after a visit from UC Santa Barbara with a three-game series at Long Beach State.
Hawai'i is in the middle most everywhere in the rankings. The Rainbow Warriors lead the conference in walks (117) and sac bunts (16) on the offensive end while excelling in batting with the Big West's third-best average (.269) and second-most hits (215) averaging 5.7 runs per game. Alex Baeza runs the show with a .341 average, four of the team's nine HRs, and 22 RBIs. Scotty Scott (.337, 20 R) and Maaki Yamazaki (.309, 14 RBI), and Ethan Lopez (8 2B, 2 HR, 19 RBI) all compliment a volatile lineup for UH which has outscored its opponents, 137-124, despite the record
The pitching side has seen a fluid rotation anchored by Jeremy Wu-Yelland who has started every weekend. The staff has an ERA of 4.35 with seven different pitchers making a start. Dylan Thomas is a key arm topping the team with a 2.89 ERA, two wins in five decisions, 36 strikeouts, and one of the three saves.
A lot of UH's familiar faces have taken up lesser roles with Adam Fogel missing in action since March 2, Logan Pouelsen having more of a mound presence including an impressive win Sunday at Ohio State, Dominic DeMiero has yet to last past the fifth, and Cade Smith has been strictly coming out of the bullpen for the Rainbow Warriors
