IRVINE, Calif. --- UC Irvine baseball takes a detour for its final non-conference series of the season with another Pac-12 opponent, Oregon State, coming to Anteater Ballpark, April 23-25. UCI took a road series at Cal Poly last weekend while the Beavers are 25-10 with the most wins in the competitive Pac-12 to this point. This weekend marks the first ESPN3 broadcast at Anteater Ballpark this season with the rest of the home slate being shown on ESPN3. This weekend will also feature fans in the stands for the again with limited numbers of UC Irvine player-guests and season ticket holders able to watch the series in Anteater Ballpark.
Anteater Ballpark Fan Information
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| Â Probable Rotation |
| UC Irvine |
vs. |
Oregon State |
| Pitcher |
Year |
|
Stats |
Day |
Pitcher |
Year |
|
Stats |
| Trenton Denholm |
Jr. |
RHP |
(3-1, 3.98) |
Friday |
Kevin Abel |
RS-So. |
RHP |
(3-3, 3.09) |
| Nick Pinto |
Fr. |
LHP |
(4-2, 2.92) |
Saturday |
Cooper Hjerpe |
Fr. |
LHP |
(2-3, 2.05) |
| Michael Frias |
RS-So. |
RHP |
(5-0, 2.23) |
Sunday |
Jake Pfennigs |
So. |
RHP |
(2-0, 3.18) |
Around The Horn
Â
37Â - The two youngest coaches on the West square off with Orloff (34) and Canham (36) both under the age of
37
4Â - The 'Eaters are among the top
4 nationally in triples (4th), hit by pitch (3rd), and sacrifice bunts (T1st)
6Â - Castro, Damla, Peabody, Riddle, Vergara, and van den Helder mark the
6 graduates over the Winter Quarter
2.61Â -
Dillon Tatum had a slugging percentage of 1.909 last weekend, and his weekend OPS of
2.614 led the nation
Â
LEADING OFF
+ UC Irvine baseball fought to a Big West road series victory taking three of four in San Luis Obispo. The first three games were won via comeback with UCI erased a 5-1 Friday deficit to roar back, 11-6. Saturday's doubleheader saw Cal Poly jump in front 1-0 in each. UCI took the lead in Game One before letting it slip with one out to go in the ninth, 4-3. Game Two was jump-started by
Dillon Tatum's two home runs and
Michael Frias' pitching to win, 4-1. The weekend finished on UCI's fifth run-rule victory scoring eight in the first two innings en route to a 17-1 win. UCI continues to lead the Big West at 16-4, and hold a 22-11 overall record.
+ Tatum and Frias made the greatest impacts on each side of the ball, and each were rewarded with their first Big West honors.
Michael Frias put up career bests of eight innings and 117 pitches tying his best of nine strikeouts while allowing just two infield singles to win his fifth game of the year.
Dillon Tatum helped his win by bashing his first two-HR game, and ended the weekend hitting .636 with six of seven hits going for extra-bases and team highs of eight RBIs and five runs scored.
+ The offense continued to rise as its hitting .297 on the year, 22nd nationally, and averages 7.4 runs a game. Outside of Tatum's exploits,
Mike Peabody joined him with eight RBIs including his first career Grand Slam on Sunday. Four Anteaters have five-hit weekends including
Jacob Castro who doubled home runs twice and hit his second career triple.
Jake Palmer returned to the starting lineup for the first time since March 7, and continued his hit streak now at nine games. The bench played a large role with
Caden Kendle scoring each time he was used as a pinch-runner, and
Woody Hadeen was 3-for-4 entering as a sub in each game.
+ Pitching was stout with a 2.41 ERA allowing Cal Poly to hit .203 on the weekend.
Nick Pinto joined Frias with strong starts going 8.2 innings while suffering a devastating loss from three unearned runs.
Peter Van Loon went four scoreless to get back in the win column Sunday. The bullpen lowered its season ERA to 3.62 allowing two runs in 10 innings of service.
Jacob King saved his team-high third game, and was joined by
Gordon Ingebritson securing his first career save over 2.2 innings in a pair of outings.
Tanner Brooks continued his scoreless run on Fridays going 2.1 innings and taking home another win in relief.
+ Nationally, the 'Eaters drew even in sacrifice bunts alongside Central Michigan with 33 on the year. Other top categories for the 'Eaters include hit by pitch (3rd) with 72 and triples (4th) with 15. Elsewhere, the 'Eaters ranked among the top 50 in many areas such as fielding percentage (20th), batting average (22nd), on-base percentage (24th), hits, runs, and runs per game (30th), ERA (34th), shutouts (34th), winning percentage (41st), doubles (42nd), walks allowed per nine innings (43rd), sacrifice flies (49th), and double plays (50th). Within the Big West Conference, UCI commands many of those categories as well leading all schools in scoring in ERA (3.72), fielding (.979), on-base percentage (.399), triples (15), hit by pitch (72), and sacrifice bunts (33).
+ Church leads the national charge for 'Eaters in the rankings continuing to sit atop the nation in triples while also excelling in runs scored (28th), doubles (30th), hits (35th), and total bases (49th).
Dillon Tatum's four-HR weekend launched him to the top of the Big West with nine this year and 44th nationally.
Mike Peabody continues to lead the conference with 12 hit by pitch, 16th in the NCAA, and his batting and slugging stand top 10 in the Big West. Pitching holds more leaders with Frias among the best in WHIP (18th) which is also tops in the conference, wins (37th), ERA (67th), and strikeouts (125th).
Nick Pinto joins him with a top-100 WHIP and allowing just 6.19 hits per game.
Jacob King leads the conference with 17 appearances, 28th nationally, and the second-most saves in the Big West.
Thomas McCaffrey and
Connor McGuire each have five sacrifice bunts, 44th in NCAA.
+ The weekend saw a lot of streaks including
Nathan Church's streaks ending at 19 games with a hit and 18 games with a run. The hitting streak is the ninth of that length in UCI history matching the likes of Keston Hiura, Ollie Linton, and Adam Ging who each had 19-game streaks.
Mike Peabody's on-base streak ended at 24 games. The new streak leaders are
Dillon Tatum and
Jake Palmer. Palmer has hit in nine straight with 11 straight on-base, matched by
Thomas McCaffrey who has reached in all 11 career games with an at-bat. Tatum has reached in 12 straight with a six-game hitting streak.
Taishi Nakawake had a nine-game hitting streak snapped, but does come in with a hit in 13 straight at home followed by Church with eight straight and Peabody with seven straight. Four pitchers enter with shutout streaks of at least five innings including relievers
Andre Antone (5.2 IP) and
Jacob King (5.0 IP).
+ Anteater career records are nearing for some student-athletes.
Trenton Denholm will make his 43rd start sitting solely in 11th all-time. His 18th win on Friday pushed him into the Anteater top 20.
Adrian Damla slowly makes his way up the Anteater list in games played, and could surpass the likes of Kris Paulino (19th—183) and Mike Goodcase (18th—184). He is the active leader in games along with hits (146), doubles (26), and RBIs (87).
Mike Peabody was plunked for the 36th time in his career. He's nearing the top of the list occupied by his head coach
Ben Orloff at 43 where he is 1 of 3 Anteaters with 40 HBP all-time.
Dillon Tatum's next home run will make him the sixth Anteater ever with 10 in a season.
+ UCI plays its last non-conference games of the regular season against another Pac-12 school. The Anteaters are 5-5 so far against the conference, 4-0 at home. Under coach Orloff, UCI is 14-11 against the Pac-12, and since returning to play in 2002 hold an overall record against the Pac-12 of 95-79.
THIS WEEKEND
The Anteaters and Beavers play a three-game series, just the fourth for UCI and first since early March. Oregon State makes its first trip to UCI ever, and first to a Big West school since 2021.
The programs have met just five times, one in the regular season coming in 1972, a UCI neutral-site win. UCI lost to OSU in a College World Series game in 2007, and most-recently won two of three at Corvallis as part of the 2014 NCAA Regional.
The Beavers come in ranked in some polls - 21st by the NCBWA and 22nd according to Baseball America and Collegiate Baseball Newspaper. UCI has 84 wins over ranked opponents in its history spanning 191 games. UCI is 37-34 against ranked programs at home, and 23-30-1 against ranked Pac-12 teams.
PROGRAMMING NOTES
Spectators returned to Anteater Ballpark for the first time in 13 months against UCSD. Full details on who can attend and protocols they must follow can be found on ucirvinesports.com. Limited tickets will be available to season ticket holders and UC Irvine player-guests.
Live streams of all home games are available this season, and beginning April 23, will be upgraded to an ESPN3 production. Mark Roberts is on the play-by-play simulcast all year on the live stream and KUCI 88.9 FM radio broadcasts. Live tweet updates and live stats will also continue to keep fans tuned in to all Anteater games to give the experience of being at the game all season.
Big West announced ESPNU to broadcast UC Irvine's Saturday matchup at UC Santa Barbara on May 8. It will be only for Game 2 of the doubleheader moving that start time to 7:00 p.m. Game One will now be at 3:00 p.m. with Friday at 5:00 p.m. and Sunday at 1:00 p.m.
The 2021 season represents one significant anniversary as it marks the 20th season of Anteater Ballpark. January 25, 2001 was the date of the groundbreaking of the new ballpark and the return of the program. While the 20th anniversary of that date passed last month, the 2021 season marks the 20th season UCI baseball. Since its erection in 2002, the 'Eaters hold a record of 361-185. The team won its first 11 games at home this year before Sunday's loss marking the fourth time in Anteater Ballpark the squad has begun the year 11-1 or better, and the second best start at home behind the 2011 squad's 16-0 start.
Thoughts from Head Coach Ben Orloff
Ben Postgame Friday, April 16 - "I feel like that was a real complete win for us. We dug ourselves in an early hole, but this team just keeps playing. The relief pitching really gave us a chance to come back and win this. Our defense was incredible today, and obviously a bunch of big hits strung together. That was a complete win and as tough as a win we've had all year."
"I went over a bunch of plays with the team and I'll probably miss some - Spillane makes the diving catch early in the game, Cosgrove diving up the middle, Connor makes a play going to his left, 360 and throws the guy out, Taishi makes a great play running far into foul ground backhand, Damla made a good play on a cued ball to start the eighth inning, and then makes a good play on a bad ball in the dirt by Brooks on a PFP and makes a good play in foul territory down the right field line, Spillane makes a nice play in the ninth running in far to catch the ball similar to the ball we didn't catch at Northridge, turned a 4-6-3 double play. All of it helps the pitching and keeps us in the game."
"It's good that we got Palmer healthy finally, and we just wanted to maximize the most offense in the lineup. Castro has taken balls at first base last year and more this year, so just a move to get the most offense in the lineup. And it just always feels good to write Palmer's name into the lineup again."
Ben Postgame Saturday, April 17 - "It's a devastating loss. For us to say anything less would be downplaying it. Pinto was great, as good as he can pitch. We did enough offensively to put us in a position to win, just didn't get the last out."
"Frias was unbelievable - 2 hits in 8 innings, not many balls hit hard, that was the deepest he's gone. We're at a point now where his stats matter, he is not a fluke, he's pitching really good."
"We've got to be able to win every game in every way possible. Last night, we win a game 11-6, tonight was two close, low-scoring games. Tatum was the hero with two balls over the fence, hits a double, pinch-hit single. There was a lot of unsung heroes. We scored 7 runs today, and two of them were because of Caden Kendle off the bench. He scores from second on a ball that doesn't leave the infield, then he goes first-to-third on a ball to right. We've got a lot of guys playing big roles in us doing well."
Ben Postgame Sunday, April 18 - "We couldn't wait to get to the field today because even yesterday winning the second game, that was about as out of character as we've played the entire year. So I think we're excited and motivated to get out here today and show off those winning habits and play more in character. How we went about stuff today was way better than that second game yesterday even in a win. We scored 5 runs in the 1st today with nobody on and two outs."
"Up and down the lineup, everybody's seeing the depth of this team. Even the arms, we have good guys that didn't even get to pitch. One of the big takeaways is Dillon Tatum had a huge weekend. He keeps getting better and not just the home runs. His first at-bat is a two-strike, opposite-field, two-RBI double, then a two-strike sacrifice fly, and a two-strike home run to center field. He continues to get better and his extra-base hits to at-bat numbers are a joke."
"All weekend, our bullpen, we didn't use them much overall, but they were huge in what we did Friday, and three good innings from Stanford, Antone, and Ibarra. Ibarra is starting to look like Ibarra. Van Loon we're still trying to manage the blister thing, and when we can manage the workload we will. We want to get guys in the game and guys that can pitch, but when you're getting starts like we've gotten, it makes using a lot of guys difficult."
On the 2020 cancelation - "I can remember the day the announcement came out and having to address the team. We were getting conflicting reports that week, but when it finally came out that the season got canceled and you have to tell the team, you see the hurt in guys' faces who may have played their last game at Irvine or last game ever."
On the UCI 2021 roster - "You just know over the course of the season, somebody is going to be unavailable or a group will need to be shut down, it's just inevitable. We will need lots of players with all the challenges, and we have a smaller roster in the Big West with 38. This year is also unique in the sense that there's so many guys that normally would not be here either from the draft or graduation."
On games without spectators in 2021 -Â "For the fans, I hope they continue to follow us. We're really excited about the schedule that we have. No midweeks, we still have 10 Pac-12 games, all the sacrifice that the kids have made to get to this point, we're looking forward to being one of those teams with players that are going to be a lot better from February to April."
On the 2021 Schedule - "We came out with a 56-game schedule, which, in a pandemic, has taken a lot of work and rework. We're not leaving the state and not getting on an airplane. Our league deciding to do four-game weekends is something I wanted a lot. Throughout this, I've wanted to play the most games and the most innings, and that's what we got. 56 games has a big significance because it could get canceled like we've seen with other sports. I think that's important for me, for our kids, and for the team. The quality of opponents is still really good. Especially during the pandemic, I'm really proud of the schedule that we have. We're looking forward to a lot of baseball. We're excited for the challenge, and we all want and love to play. I don't think we can have enough games or innings. Let's play."
On practicing in the fall and prior to the season - "In the fall, we had 18 days with small groups. We played no inter-squad games, just eight 4-to-5 person pods. It was very skill-based, not much team stuff. In January, we were in small groups until we pulled the tarp off the field on January 28. That was the first time the whole team has been on the same field together, before that we had to try and get creative. Since the 30th, we've been as a team having normal-ish practices. We've played eight inter-squads, and they have been telling for the stuff we haven't practiced and game-type stuff that comes up. We still have a lot of ground to cover before opening day, and once we get playing, keep learning and trying to get better."
On leadership roles - "It's been really hard these past months because we've only been a team for two weeks, but you see some of the older players really trying to help some of the new guys get stuff. Position players like Palmer and Peabody are trying to help the new guys get it, and Denholm on the pitching side. It's been much needed because of how little we've been on the field. In a year like this, the smart teams that know what they're supposed to do and can handle the situations even with a lack of practice time, those are the teams that do well. The teams that get better once the season starts, you'll look up in April and they'll have a better record than the other guys."
On the rotation - "The first weekend will be how we planned to finish last year – Denholm-Van Loon-Pinto. They've been the best guys, especially Van Loon has taken the biggest jump forward. He's a lot more physical, his stuff has ticked up a bit. He had an arm injury that ended his sophomore year at junior college so he's just kind of continued to distance himself from that. He's been really good, and probably on the whole team has taken the biggest improvement from last year."
On bullpen depth - "It Takes All Of Us - I joke with our guys about that NFL slogan, but we're going to need that depth once we get to four-game weekends. The guys at the end of the game will be the same in John Vergara and Josh Ibarra. One of the guys that's emerged that will pitch a lot is Jacob King. He's developed a slider that's made him a lot better and will be one of the best guys out of the bullpen and pitch a lot. Gordon Ingebritson is in the mix, Troy Wentworth is improved, Michael Frias has looked good the last few weeks after missing the fall. Andre Antone is now a pitcher-only. He went through Tommy John in high school right when he was starting to get good, but still never got to focus on pitching being a two-way guy. Now, that's all he's focusing on, and he's thrown the ball decent. In terms of pitching, what's different about the schedule is no Tuesday games so I think the lack of opportunity that some guys might get in the first three weeks of the season will be there."
OREGON STATE BEAVERS
Oregon State is back to their old ways at 25-10 to this point in the season with 10 conference wins to lead the Pac-12. The Beavers have won most series including four at Grand Canyon, three vs. BYU, and Pac-12 wins against Cal, Utah, and Washington. Their only missteps have really been to in-state rival Oregon losing 5 of 6 in a pair of series.
The 2020 Beavers started slow at 5-9, but was stacked with a tournament in Arizona, trips to Mississippi State and SDSU, and a home series to UCSB. OSU is 11-4 away from home this year as it makes its first trip to California this weekend. This series is significant marking the first trip to play at a Big West school since the beginning of the 2012 season. The programs have met just five times with one regular season meeting back in 1972. UCI and OSU met in the 2007 College World Series that the Beavers claimed in Omaha, while the last matchup was in Corvallis where UCI took down the No. 1-National Seed Beavers two of three times at their own NCAA Regional.
Pitching carries the load for Oregon State with the third-best ERA nationally at 2.69. They also allow just 6.3 hits a game (5th in NCAA), nearly three strikeouts to every walk, and the fourth-best WHIP. Not to mention the third-best defense in the nation behind the arms. Kevin Abel is a Friday ace entering the season on the Golden Spikes Watch List, and Cooper Hjerpe has matched him with ERAs below 2.75. Six bullpen arms await that have appeared five or more times with ERAs under 3.00, and Jake Mulholland is lurking to close with nine saves and one ER in 17.1 IP.
Offense makes noise as well with a .291 team average and over six runs a game for the Beavers. Jacob Melton leads the charge with the 10th-best average at .407 and the conference's best slugging percentage. The order is deep with Andy Armstrong sporting team highs of 46 hits and 10 doubles, and Ryan Ober tops the Beavers in runs, RBIs, home runs, and walks.
