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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.
1,575 - The 'Eaters welcomed its largest crowd since May of 2015 with 1,575 fans in Anteater Ballpark Tuesday night vs. #1 UCLA. It was the 75th crowd of at least 1,000 at home since 2002, the 27th of at least 1,500 fans, and 22nd-largest crowd all-time in Anteater Ballpark's history
8th - The
8th Anteater to reach the Major Leagues emerged last week on Tuesday, May 14 as
Keston Hiura joined the Milwaukee Brewers and went 2-for-3 with a BB in his debut. He later added his first career HR Sunday off ATL starter Mike Foltynewicz. Hiura was the No. 1 prospect in Milwaukee's organization and by position (2B). He's the first 'Eater to debut since Christian Bergman in 2014
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UC Irvine won when they needed to taking its 12th series win in 14 weekends, and it secured the sweep for its seventh in 2019 and third in conference play.
The 'Eaters moved in a tie for second in the Big West in the Big West drawing even with Cal Poly at 15-6. Both clubs are three games back of UC Santa Barbara with three games left, and Cal Poly will be playing at UCSB this week. The only scenario that involves a Big West title for UCI would be series sweeps by UC Irvine and Cal Poly to create a three-way tie atop the Big West. In that scenario, UCI would not receive the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament due to tiebreaking procedures. It could still claim a share of its second Big West title, but and NCAA berth will be as an at-large selection
UCI's RPI fell slightly to 54 to start the final week of the regular season. RPI is used to determine the best teams that should earn an at-large berth for the NCAA Tournament with teams rating in the 40s and 50s usually among the last to earn a spot. Of UCI's remaining games, Tuesday's opponent USC has an RPI of 87 while UC Riverside over the weekend is down at 220. A lot of UCI's RPI can fluctuate based off how teams it faced over the course of the season fair in their conference tournament or remaining conference games.
UCI plays its final home game Tuesday night against USC, and enters with a 20-5 mark in Anteater Ballpark. UCI finished with 25 wins at home in its 2013 campaign while going 23-4 in 2011 and 21-4 in the regular season in 2009. Since opening Anteater Ballpark in 2002, the 'Eaters now have 16 winning seasons in 18 years posting 342 wins in 523 games
UC Irvine takes on another Pac-12 foe, regarded as the fourth-best conference in the nation, and UCI is 6-3 against the Pac-12 in 2019 including 5-2 in Anteater Ballpark
For the third time this season, UC Irvine swept the weekly Big West awards claiming Field Player of the Week for a fourth time on the back of
Jake Palmer's .611 average going 11-for-18 with five runs scored, two RBI, and registering his second career 4-hit game as he returned from injury in flying colors. UCI also scored its program-record seventh Pitcher of the Week accolade and fourth from
Trenton Denholm who tied an Anteater record with his fifth career award. Denholm tossed his third complete game, most in a season since Andrew Morales' three in 2014, and earned his ninth win allowing two runs, five hits, no walks, and striking out nine. He retired his brother Logan, a catcher on UC Davis, in all three plate appearances as well as he remains among the nation's top ten in WHIP, least hits allowed, and ERA. This coming a week after he was named a National Pitcher of the Year Semifinalist.
The rest of the starting rotation rose to the occasion as
Andre Pallante stepped up for 7.1 innings allowing five hits, two runs, two walks while striking out eight to earn his ninth win.
Taylor Rashi was called upon to start twice going 4.1 innings Tuesday and four more Sunday allowing six runs for eight total on the season over 40.2 innings and 51 strikeouts to five walks.
The Anteater offense pounded out a .368 average over the weekend helped by eight hits in four games from
Christian Koss who scored four of his seven runs on Friday.
Konnor Zickefoose had six hits and four RBI against UC Davis while
Adrian Damla drove home six on just two hits.
Brandon Lewis had just three hits, but all for extra bases including his 14th HR of 2019 to tie him atop the Anteater single-season records with Cody Cipriano from 2007.
UCI is coming up on season bests down the stretch:
+ The defense has committed just 37 errors. The all-time low of 39 was set in 2013, and the program has had just three seasons with less than 50 errors.
+ With 224 walks, UCI is 14 away from the most its had in a season (238 in 2002) since the program respawned. The all-time mark for walks in a season of 294 was set in 1990
+ UCI pitching is averaging 8.59 Ks per nine innings in 2019. Only three times in program history has it finished with a mark over 8.0. The best came in 2008 with 8.40 Ks per nine innings, a feat UCI can top with at least 25 strikeouts in the final four regular season games
+ UCI will reach 300 runs with the next run it scores, a mark the team has hit just once (2015) in the last seven years. All this coming with a team batting average of .259. UCI's team average has finished below .265 just once when the team hit .253 in 2003
+
Brandon Lewis needs one HR to set the UCI single season mark, and also recently became the 17th Anteater with 50 RBI in a season. He remains eight away from 60 which would make him the fifth Anteater with as many in a season. He also could collect his 20th double, something only six Anteaters have done, and is within striking distance of the season doubles mark of 24 set by Taylor Holiday and
Keston Hiura
The Anteaters remain ranked according to Perfect Game at No. 20. UCI is out of most of the major polls for the third straight week after filling up the ranking for the first 12. UCI has been as high as 15th this season, and were 19th two weeks ago according to Baseball America. ESPN/USA Today have UCI 35th currently in the coaches poll.
UC Irvine had its eighth member join the Major League ranks last week as
Keston Hiura made his debut on Tuesday, May 14, going 2-for-3 with a BB including a hit off of PHI pitcher Jerad Eickhoff's leg in his first MLB at-bat. Hiura later added his first career HR on Sunday, May 19, a solo HR in the fifth inning off ATL starter Mike Foltynewicz.
The Anteaters eclipsed the 20-win mark against Long Beach State to register the second-quickest occurrence in program history accomplishing it in just 25 games. The 2008 squad started the season 20-4. UCI had a pair of games canceled by weather (vs. #16 Michigan, at Missouri State) leaving them in a 54-game schedule. Two more wins will guarantee the 'Eaters a non-losing season and one more conference win will guarantee a non-losing record in Big West play
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
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 collecting six hits.
The ninth head coach in program history,
Ben Orloff returns to the Anteater dugout for a sixth year, first at the helm. Even though he is the NCAA career (86), and season (34) record holder in sacrifice bunts, don't expect to see his the 'Eaters 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."
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
Louis Raymond. A pair of Anteaters finished their undergraduate schooling following the Winter Quarter in pitcher
Alonzo Garcia and outfielder
Konnor Zickefoose. Overall, 14 Anteaters have put in at least three years with the program including seven into now their fourth year.
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John 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."
"
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 Anteaters will play 10 games against the Pac-12 in 2019, eight of which will be in Anteater Ballpark. UCI is currently 6-3 against the conference winning each weekend series against Washington and Washington State while dropping a pair to No. 1 UCLA making UCI 87-72 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.
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
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USC TROJANS
UCI and USC matched up on April 23 with a wild affair that saw both side hold leads of at least four runs before the Anteaters pulled out three runs in the 10th to win, 12-9. Since we last saw the Trojans, they've gone 6-6 including series wins vs. Oregon and at Cal Poly with a series at #12 Oregon State ahead of them and an outside chance to finish in sixth or seventh in the Pac-12
The Trojans were hurt by a six-run Anteater first in the last outing that set them back, but they boomed back behind two-run HRs from Clay Owens and Brad Shockey, and Tyler Lozano drove in three from behind the plate to take an 9-5 lead before it dissolved
Isaac Esqueda, one of their weekend starters, will get the ball this Tuesday trying to avoid the early hole from the last game. His last two starts, he's lasted a total of 1.2 innings walking six and allowing four runs to score in games the team lost. He has a 3-5 mark and 4.20 ERA on the year striking out 46 batters to 19 walks
USC excels in not allowing hits (8.2 per game) while racking up 8.7 strikeouts per game. They also hit .269 as a team with an above average defense that has turned 37 double plays
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UC RIVERSIDE HIGHLANDERS
UC Riverside enters the final week eighth in the Big West at 19-34 overall with seven Big West wins. They had their ups including a series wins over UC Santa Barbara, Hawai'i, and Cal Baptist, but also some pretty low lows including 19 games which they've allowed 10 or more runs, three 20-run games, and a 31-3 shellacking at home to San Diego this year. UCR is 3-8 in May, but have won their last two at Cal Poly and vs. Oregon to go with an 11-10 mark at Riverside Sports Complex
In the all-time series, UCI has 50 wins in 77 matchups, but have lost two of the last three series in Riverside with a record of 4-5 in those games. UCI took two of three in Anteater Ballpark last year in what was the final homestand of 2018
The Highlanders can hit with a .270 average and are among the Big West's best in HR (47) and slugging (.402). The catalysts are the dynamic duo of Dean Miller (.363, 15 2B, 14 HR, 48 RBI) and Connor Cannon (.318, 17 HR, 42 RBI). Miller is hitting .412 in conference play with hits in 20 of 21 games, and the rest of the lineup has chipped in with Travis Bohall hitting .331 and just 19 strikeouts and the most stolen bases in Big West play (10), Yeager Taylor has 35 RBI with a .316 average, and Nathan Webb has 12 doubles to go with five homers. UCR is prone to strikeout with 42 more than any other Big West school and they rank near the bottom in on-base percentage.
The pitching has been consistent with a 6.65 overall ERA and 6.44 in Big West games. Abbott Haffar has been called on to start six times going 4-1 with a 3.72 ERA in conference season while Shamus Lyons (3-6, 5.94), Jeremiah Priddy (0-7, 6.07), and Riley Ohl (3-5, 4.83) have been called on in the absence of star Cole Percival
As a staff, opposing Big West hitters are batting .326 against them with just 122 strikeouts in conference play. UCR pitchers have walked near 50 more hitters than the next program in conference play, and have allowed 181 runs, 53 of which are unearned stemming from 45 errors in conference, nearly triple what the Anteaters have produced. Opponents have taken advantage on the basepaths with the most stolen bases against (51) having caught just six this Big West season. UCR can kill a rally however with 21 double plays turned in Big West play to lead the conference
The bullpen has a couple bright spots with Hayden Petrovick sitting with a 5-2 record, Jared Noonan has three saves and 30 Ks to 14 BBs in 42.2 innings, and Andre Granillo has four saves with two strikeouts to every walk
