UCLA
Oregon State
UCLA Tops Oregon State, 4-1, behind Clutch Two-Out Hitting
April 04, 2015 | Baseball
LOS ANGELES – The No. 9 UCLA Bruins evened the weekend series with Oregon State by defeating the Beavers, 4-1, on Friday night at Jackie Robinson Stadium. A trio of two-out RBIs proved to be the difference for UCLA to earn its ninth conference victory.
Senior Grant Watson (5-2) turned in one of his best outings of the season, striking out a season-high tying six batters, while allowing no runs on three hits to earn the win. Beavers' freshman Drew Rasmussen (3-2) allowed four runs on seven hits in 5.2 innings to receive the loss. Senior closer David Berg came on in the ninth to shut the door, earning his seventh save of the season.
Kevin Kramer (2-for-5, 2B, 2 RBI, 2 SB) knocked in a pair of runs and stole two bases to lead the Bruin offense. Darrell Miller Jr. (2-for-4, 2B, 2 R) and Ty Moore (2-for-4, RBI) each pitched in multi-hit efforts as well.
UCLA (22-6, 9-2) struck for the game's first run in the bottom of the third inning on an RBI-single from Moore. The Bruin left fielder came through with a clutch two-out single up the middle to plate Brett Stephens from second base. The RBI, Moore's 27th of the year, put UCLA on top, 1-0, after three frames.
One inning later, it was another two-out RBI that extended the Bruin lead to two runs. Miller Jr. began the inning with a single and subsequently moved up to third on a sacrifice-bunt from Christoph Bono and a groundout by Trent Chatterton. With Miller Jr. on third, Kramer squared up a 1-2 pitch and sent a hard line-drive back up the middle to bring the UCLA catcher home to score.
Up 2-0, the Bruins went on to add two more to the total in the bottom of the sixth inning. With one out, Bono cashed in Miller Jr., who doubled in the previous at-bat, with an RBI-single to center field. Bono reached second on the play due to an overthrow by Beavers' right fielder Joe Gillette. Then, with two outs, it was Kramer with another clutch at-bat, stroking an RBI-double to left field to bring Bono around to score.
UCLA had hopes of its fifth shutout of the season, but Oregon State (22-8, 5-3) finally broke through in the top of the seventh to climb within three. With two outs, Kyle Nobach hit an RBI-double down the right field line to cut the Bruin lead to 4-1.
That would mark the end of the scoring for Oregon State as the Bruin bullpen came on to dominate the final two innings. Grant Dyer and David Berg combined to strike out all six batters, in succession, in the eighth and ninth, closing out the night for UCLA.
rubber match between the Bruins and Beavers will be tomorrow at 4:00pm PT at Jackie Robinson Stadium. The game will be broadcast live on the Pac-12 Networks and fans can also access a live radio broadcast at uclabruins.com.
Notes: In conference play, UCLA has a combined 1.49 ERA with 111 strikeouts over 113.0 innings. David Berg has allowed zero runs and struck out 21 batters over 14.0 innings in conference play. Five Bruin pitchers have ERAs under 2.00 in Pac-12 play (Berg 0.00, Dyer 0.87, James Kaprielian 0.99, Griffin Canning 1.17, Watson 1.64). Grant Dyer has thrown 10.1 consecutive innings without allowing an earned run. Kevin Kramer recorded his team-leading 17th multi-hit game.
