UCLA Baseball: What Just Happened?

UCLA Baseball spent this last weekend at home instead of competing in the NCAA Tournament’s Regional Round. For a preseason top-15 team, that’s quite the disappointment. What happened?

The Bruins’ final record of 25-31 was the team’s worst since 2005, good for 10th of 11 in the conference (Colorado does not field a baseball team).

After hanging around .500 through the non-conference part of the schedule, UCLA won three straight in the Dodger Stadium Classic and looked poised to make a step forward during Pac-12 play. But the conference was deeper this season than last, and injuries started to pile up, and the Bruins stumbled their way to the final series.

The main culprit was the offense, which posted a 9th-in-conference ranked .250 batting average and hit just 14 home runs hit all season, fewest of any power conference team. The season ended appropriately as the Bruins held scoreless in all three games of a sweep at Oregon State.

The starting pitching took an expected step back this year, but the bottom plain fell out of the bullpen, usually one of the strengths of a John Savage coached team. Replacing departed all-world closer David Berg was never going to be easy, but it proved downright impossible – at least for 2016.