Broadcast Information
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Video
All three matchups at UC Santa Barbara will be streamed online through bigwest.TV with links available 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.
82 -Â UC Irvine plays four games against ranked programs this week with No. 1 UCLA and No. 19 UC Santa Barbara on the docket. UCI has
82 all-time wins against ranked foes including 42 on the road, 21 against the Pac-12, 5 against UCLA, 33 against Big West programs, 3 against UCSB, and 6 against a national No. 1 squad in 14 all-time matchups
1.05 -Â The Anteaters walked one hitter in the series vs. LBSU and had a string of 109 consecutive hitters without issuing a walk to drop its WHIP to an NCAA low
1.05. UCI also touts the top pitcher when it comes to WHIP in
Trenton Denholm sitting at 0.68 having allowed 37 baserunners in 47 innings
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UC Irvine won its weekend series against Long Beach State in a sweep, its fifth of the season. The 'Eaters are 8-0 in weekend series in 2019
UC Irvine currently stands first in the Big West Conference with a 5-1 record, one game ahead of Cal Poly. The Anteaters are joined by UC Santa Barbara who each have just one conference loss
The Anteaters have eclipsed the 20-win mark over the weekend in just its 25th game to register the second-quickest occurrence in program history. The 2008 squad started the season 20-4
Trenton Denholm secured his second Big West Pitcher of the Week accolade tossing his first complete game and the program's first CG SHO since Elliot Surrey in 2015. Denholm is now 6-0 on the year tying for the conference lead in victories while leading the Big West with a 1.53 ERA and .139 opponent's batting average.
Denholm now leads the NCAA with a 0.68 WHIP helping the Anteaters to the nation's lowest WHIP as a team at 1.05
Now to be overshadowed, but
Tanner Brubaker also went the distance for his first career complete game allowing one run on six hits with eight strikeouts in Saturday's win. He is now 4-1 with the fourth-best Big West ERA at 2.04 and his 53 innings pitched are two-thirds off the conference high
Andre Pallante kept pace as well with three earned runs allowed over seven innings to improve to 5-2. Pallante and Brubaker each have four quality starts now while he stands among the conference leaders in a number of categories
The staff as a whole walked just one hitter over the weekend as
Trenton Denholm's 8th-inning walk of Luke Rasmussen broke a string of 109 consecutive hitters without issuing a walk dating back to the prior Sunday in the 6th inning at Hawai'i. The starters accounted for 25 of the 27 innings pitched in the sweep of LBSU. UCI also posted its sixth shutout which ties the club for the national lead alongside UCLA, Alabama, Tennessee, Auburn, and Michigan
The offense in the series came from
Brandon Lewis who have five hits including a double Friday, a home run Sunday, and a team-high four RBIs to improve his Big West leads in HR (11) and RBIs (37).
Mikey Filia drove in three including a two-run single Friday and a solo HR Sunday as he and Lewis accounted for all four extra-base hits for UCI of their 19 on the weekend.
Christian Koss also had three RBIs and stole his team-best eighth base.
Mike Peabody reached base eight times with four hits and three runs scored. The team used four sac bunts in the four games including two squeeze plays properly executed by
Christian Koss and
Ryan Johnston
The Anteaters bumped up the rankings to 16th in Baseball America's poll this week. Elsewhere, the 'Eaters now stand 18th according to D1Baseball.com, 20th . UCI has been ranked in all polls this season after not receiving national recognition since 2015, 20th from Perfect Game, 21st from NCBWA, and 22nd in ESPN/USA Today. Collegiate Baseball Newspaper has the 'Eaters at 15th
The Anteaters will face their first ranked opposition of 2019 in all four matchups this week. UCI travels to UCLA Tuesday night with the Bruins ranked No. 1 for the fourth consecutive week. UC Santa Barbara in the weekend series ranks 19th as it hosts the Anteaters
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This weekend's matchup features two of the top three defenses in the conference. Both squads have fielding percentages above 0.974 and each have committed less than an error per game. Each squad's catching units have allowed less than 20 stolen base attempts on the year with each side recording eight caught stealings
The Anteaters finished March with a record of 13-2 improving to 18-5 overall. It was the third such March in program history with 13+ wins joining the 14-3 March of 2008 and 13-5 mark in 2009.
UC Irvine's spectacular March saw the team hit .278, walks twice as many times, and average 7.5 runs a game while allowing opponents to hit just .199. The staff has a 2.80 ERA in the month striking out 130 hitters over 135 innings while opponents have a 6.85 ERA when facing Anteater hitting
The Anteaters remain in the national rankings in stats like shutouts with five where they have the fourth-most along with the seventh-best WHIP at 1.10. UCI's pitchers allow 6.89 hits per game (9th-least) and 2.99 walks per game (14th-least). The staff's strikeout-to-walk ratio is 3.03-to-1 (13th-best) in addition to the 21st-lowest ERA at 3.16. With the bats, UCI has the top on-base percentage in the conference (0.385) and rank top three in walks, HRs, runs per game, slugging, and triples. Batters have also been hit by 48 pitches, tops in the Big West and 14th-most nationally.
UC Irvine's series win against Hawai'i is the first to open conference play since 2015 which was a sweep of the Rainbow Warriors at home. Since 2002, the 'Eaters have own the opening Big West series 12 times now in 18 seasons. This was the eighth season since 2002 UCI started Big West play on the road with the Anteaters winning the series four times. This was the first Big West opening series win on the road since 2010 for the program. In the 11 previous years that UCI won the opening Big West series, they've finished with a winning conference record in nine of those years
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 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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#1 UCLA BRUINS
UCLA is the nation's No. 1 team and they have been for four straight weeks now solidifying that spot with a series win on the road at No. 2 Stanford last weekend. The Bruins also swept St. John's, have series wins against Oregon State and at Georgia Tech, and added wins over Oklahoma State, LMU, and three vs. USC. The Bruins have also not dropped a midweek going 23-6 to this point with near-even road and home records
The 2018 Bruins fell in the regionals finishing at 38-21 with a 19-11 record in the Pac-12. They split with UCI with each school winning handily on the road to make the all-time series 54-32-1 in favor of UCI
The pitching staff is the strength with the nation's second-lowest ERA at 2.55 and every pitcher to see the mound this year has an ERA lower than 3.50. The Bruins allow 6.25 hits per game (2nd in NCAA), strikeout over 10 hitters a game (7th in NCAA), and are just behind the 'Eaters with a 1.06 WHIP (3rd in NCAA). They also have the 19th-best fielding team behind them while throwing out half (13-of-26) of their basestealers
The bats have kept up this year too hitting .283, third in the Pac 12, along with the ninth-most triples, a top 50 slugging percentage, and 6.3 runs a contest. Jack Stronach is hitting .439, fourth in the NCAA, and ranks in the top 10 of the Pac 12 in on-base and slugging. Michael Toglia has driven in 29 runs while scoring 19, and his four HRs tie him atop the team with Ryan Kreidler and Chase Strumpf who have scored 26 and 27 runs, respectively to lead the club. On the bases, they're 35-for-41 to complete the well-rounded squad
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#19 UC SANTA BARBARA GAUCHOS
Not a whole lot was expected of UC Santa Barbara to start the year. Picked to finish fifth in the conference, no first place votes in the preseason, but suddenly they're in command of the Big West with a 22-5 overall mark and a series win on the road over Cal State Fullerton under their belt here in 2019. The national publications have caught on ranking them as high as 19th nationally thanks to series wins against Hartford. Pepperdine, Cal Baptist, and Stephen F. Austin at home, a home sweep of Missouri State, and a road sweep at Tulane which has seriously boosted the Gauchos' RPI into the top 10
The 2018 Gauchos finished just under .500 at 27-28-1 with 10 Big West wins. The 2018 series in Irvine was a trio of blowouts with the 'Eaters winning two of them and ending a drought of three straight series losses to the Gauchos. All-time, UCI holds a slight 57-55 edge, but is 31-20 since 2002 with 12 series wins. The series has ended in a sweep just four times in the last 17 series
This will mark the second time UCSB has been ranked in a series with UC Irvine. UCSB was also No. 19 in the series in early May of 2014, and the 'Eaters too were ranked at No. 20. UCI completed a sweep of the Gauchos in Anteater Ballpark with scores of 6-2, 3-2, and 8-0
UC Santa Barbara's offense is among the best in the Big West with the second-highest batting average at .291 and joined by conference-highs in on-base, slugging, runs, RBIs, doubles, triples, sac flies, and stolen bases in addition to 32 home runs, two off the conference lead.
Nationally, UCSB stands among the top 25 averaging 7.5 runs a game while boasting the 7th-best slugging percentage, third-most triples, and an NCAA-best 24 sacrifice flies. Eric Yang is a big reason hitting .402 averaging over 1.5 hits a game and is creeping up on
Brandon Lewis with 32 RBIs. Tommy Jew has dazzled with eight home runs of his 18 extra-base hits, Armani Smith leads the conference with five triples of his 19 extra-base hits, and Tevin Mitchell has swiped 13 bags in addition to 22 RBIs and a team-high 28 runs scored along with Smith
The pitching cannot be overlooked as the team's 3.45 ERA is right on the tail of the Anteaters'. Their arms lead the way in strikeouts with 9.8 per game are nearly even with UCI in not allowing walks at just 2.69 per nine innings. Ben Brecht has seized the ace role now at 6-0 with 61 Ks over 48 innings has the entire weekend rotation has yet to lose with a 13-0 record between Brecht, Jack Dashwood, and freshman Rodney Boone who had a no-hitter into the eighth on Sunday. Michael McGreevy has been dominant with four wins, four saves, and 38 strikeouts out of the bullpen, and Chris Lincoln has relished the closer role with seven saves in his 12 relief outings.
Adding a 0.976 fielding defense, the second-best in the conference and 44th in the NCAA adds to the winning recipe that UCSB has trotted out making his weekend pivotal for either team as each looks to get a leg up on the race for the Big West title between to early frontrunners.
