The Trojans dominated their cross-town foe in the first game of the series to extend their winning streak to seven games, while the Bruins struggled the entire game.
The #27 UCLA Bruins baseball team (22-17, 10-9) suffered an embarrassing 10-0 loss to their cross-town rival the USC Trojans (22-17, 9-9) in the first of a 3-game weekend series at Jackie Robinson Stadium on Thursday night.
The Bruins played poorly both offensively and on the mound. They managed just five hits the entire night off Trojans starter Wyatt Strahan (4-3) who had an impressive outing. He threw eight shutout innings, striking out seven, and only walking two. Strahan’s scoreless streak has now reached 20 consecutive innings.
The same could not be said for UCLA ace right-hander James Kaprielian (5-4), who gave up five earned runs on 10 hits in 6.2 innings pitched and four strikeouts. He surrendered four of those runs in a disastrous first inning that included a hit batter and a wild pitch. Kaprielian settled down and turned in a decent performance. However, he dug his team in an inescapable hole that they could not recover from.
The game really got away from the Bruins in the later innings when right-handed reliever Scott Burke gave up five earned runs on just two hits and two walks in two innings.
The Trojans offense wasted no time in producing runs and getting to Kaprielian early. First baseman Jake Hernandez got USC going by driving in the first run of the game on an RBI single. Hernandez finished the game 3-for-5 with two RBIs and two runs scored. Outfielder Timmy Robinson went 1-for-4 and hit his first home run of the season - a 3-run blast in the first inning.
Second baseman Dante Flores went 1-for-5 with an RBI single in the 7th inning that knocked Kaprielian out of the game. Right fielder Vahn Bozoian had one hit in four trips to the plate - a 3-run double that capped off a 5-run 9th inning to pad the Trojans lead and put the exclamation point on the victory.
UCLA failed to get much going offensively as they had just one extra-base hit and only two runners reached third base. Second baseman Luke Persico was the only bright spot for the Bruins going 2-for-4 with a double. Left fielder Ty Moore, designated hitter Kevin Williams, and third baseman Aaron Weimer collected singles for the blue and gold.
Even though they had won two straight coming into this game, UCLA had been struggling with their focus and consistency losing seven of their last 10 games. They had been sliding down the national rankings by dropping consecutive series to unranked teams like Long Beach State and Arizona.
The Bruins now have the difficult task of trying to turn this rough stretch around against a hot USC team who are on a 7-game winning streak. The Trojans were in a similar funk a few weeks ago when they dropped seven of nine and going nowhere. They are now playing their best baseball since the beginning of the season and have tied UCLA in the Pac-12 standings.
It will be interesting to see if the Bruins can take down their rival over the next two games and create some momentum or if USC will keep their torrid streak going. The Trojans have already thrown the first punch and it was a haymaker to send a message to their rival. It is up to UCLA to respond and remind the cardinal and gold who the defending champs are.
The rivals will pick things up again at Jackie Robinson Stadium on Friday night at 7 pm and Saturday afternoon at 2 pm.
Copyright 2014 SportSpeak LLC, all rights reserved. For more coverage, follow @SportSpeakLA and @SportSpeakOC on Twitter.
