BAKERSFIELD, CALIF. --- UC Irvine baseball began Saturday gutting out a low-scoring win, 2-1, at Hardt Field before coming just short in a comeback effort the doubleheader's second game, 11-9, to CSU Bakersfield.
GAME 1
UCI (35-16, 27-8) and CSU Bakersfield (20-18, 17-14) both danced around on offense early on to start the doubleheader getting runners on base in each of the first five frames.
The opening run was unearned to boot as Cody Holtz reached on a
Taishi Nakawake error and would come around on Jacen Roberson's two-out single for a 1-0 Roadrunner lead.
SCRAPPING BACK INTO IT
The Anteaters immediately responded with a two-out rally of their own in the fourth inning. A couple of groundouts gave way to
Luke Spillane who lofted a single to center field. He would fly around the bases as
Connor McGuire found the gap to tie things at 1-1 on his double.
Â
The fifth inning saw UC Irvine get their own gift run as
Nathan Church, who reached on a one-out single, went around to third base on an errant pickoff throw.
Mike Peabody would clean things up singling him home for the modest 2-1 UCI lead in the fifth.
Â
PINTO SHIFTING GEARS
Nick Pinto continued to cruise around the unearned run coming back to strikeout the side in his fourth inning. He struck out one Runner in every inning helping him through six of the innings when he allowed a baserunner and stranding seven on base.
Pinto pitched into the eighth inning and struck out 10 CSUB hitters, his second straight outing with 10 or more strikeouts.
Jacob King entered to earn the final four outs including a double play to end the game and pick up his seventh save.
Â
FINAL SCORE GAME 1: #20 UC IRVINE 2, CSU BAKERSFIELD 1
The win for UC Irvine is the 15th this year in which they trailed at one point. Their winning streak grew to a season-high nine wins, the largest for the program since 2015.
Mike Peabody put up his second straight four-hit game going a perfect 4-for-4 and collecting over half of the team's seven hits. He and McGuire added RBIs with McGuire's double the only extra-base hit.
Nick Grossman had a three-hit game for CSUB who out-hit UCI, 8-7. Holtz had two hits and scored the lone run. Aaron Charles fought for 4.1 innings allowing just one earned run with one walk and five strikeouts. Kellen O'Connor shutdown UCI from the bullpen allowing two baserunners in 3.2 innings.
GAME 2
The second game of the doubleheader started much differently as the Roadrunners brought the offense scoring four runs in the first and third innings.
Michael Frias was roughed up for the first time in Big West play giving up all eight, seven earned, as he drew the hook after just 2.1 innings.
CSUB scored all four first-inning runs with two outs, and put up a pair of two-run hits in the third including one off reliever
Tanner Brooks who came on after Frias.
The 'Eaters meanwhile couldn't get out of their own way trying to keep up with CSUB. The Anteaters first inning ended on a double play, and followed that up with a pair of runners out of the basepaths in the second.
NOT DONE YET
The 'Eaters were staring down an 8-1 deficit as they came to bat in the fourth inning. Single runs in the fourth and sixth brought the score to 9-3, and the UCI bullpen held firm before allowing runs in the sixth and seventh to make it an eight-run mountain to climb.
UCI got a big chunk of it back in the eighth inning getting a couple baserunners on with one out as a new Runner pitcher on the mound.
Nathan Church ripped a single to score one, and then
Mike Peabody chopped right into the deficit clobbering a three-run home run to right field to put UCI within four.
Â
The inning continued as the 'Eaters had a pair in scoring position and found another big, two-out hit to score both from
Luke Spillane and get the score to 11-9.
Â
FINAL SCORE GAME 2: CSU BAKERSFIELD 11, #20 UC IRVINE 9
The 'Eaters put the tying run to the plate in the ninth against closer Jack Lee, but he got Peabody to keep a flyball in the yard and dispose of
Jacob Castro on one pitch to split the Saturday doubleheader.
The win stopped the nine-game win streak in its tracks as UCI's lead in the Big West standings sits at three now ahead of UC Santa Barbara. It's also the first time UC Irvine lost the second game of a doubleheader, and also the first loss in a game started by
Michael Frias who dropped his first game of the season, now at 8-1.
Mike Peabody's home run was his eighth on the season and 11th in his career. His three RBIs gave him 51 on the season, the first 50-RBI season since Keston Hiura's in 2015, and the 18th 50-RBI season in program history. He now has an RBI in seven straight games and 10 of the last 11.
Other offensive contributions came from Church who had three hits, a run, and an RBI. Three other Anteaters had two hits in
Dillon Tatum,
Luke Spillane, and
Connor McGuire. Spillane drove in three RBIs while Tatum and McGuire each had a run. Eight Anteaters scored including
Taishi Nakawake who scored twice.
Seven Anteater pitchers kept them in the hunt including
Dylan Riddle who struck out two of three hitters, and three others that threw scoreless ball.
Â
CSUB got Ethan Skuija his third win of 2021 despite five walks and eight hits in 5.2 innings. Jack Lee saved his fourth game, and the 14th for the team this season in 20 wins. The bottom half of their lineup did the damage with 12 hits between the 5-9 hitters and 10 RBIs led by five from Aaron Casillas.
Thoughts from Head Coach Ben Orloff
"It's tough when you go down as much as we did early, and we've been there before, unfortunately. Our bullpen from a from a bunch of different guys pitched really good to give us a chance to come back in that game. Offensively, we did what we've done all year and play until the 27th out. There were a couple opportunities early where we shot ourselves in the foot on the basepaths and left runs out there that become important when you lose 11-9. Happy with how we competed; going down how we did early, it could have been easy to roll over and we didn't."
"Pinto was really good. He's pitched well a lot this year, and this was up there with his best of the year. Their guy threw the ball well, early that game had the feel of a 1-0, 2-1 game. With how well they pitched, we had to match them to be in that game. Pinto and King were great; that double play at the end was massive. It's great, it shows the depth of this team; we can 11-5, we can win 2-1, and we can come back and almost win when down 8-1."
"We've played really well on Sundays. We want to get zeroes early in the game and play from ahead, and turn it over to the bullpen that has a lot of guys rested and compete to win. Hopefully, Peter can come out and pitched like he did last week - that was by far the best outing of his year and hopefully he can do that again."
SUNDAY FUNDAY
The 'Eaters and Roadrunners close the series Sunday, May 23, with a 1:00 p.m. first pitch.
Peter Van Loon and Roman Angelo square off with a series win on the line for UCI. They also enter Sunday with a chance to clinch a share of a Big West crown with a win and a UCSB loss needed to secure that and an NCAA postseason berth.
