By Scott Bair
Daily Bruin Reporter
Like, oh my God, the UCLA Bruins will, like, travel to the
Valley this weekend to play the Cal State Northridge Matadors.
UCLA will, like, for sure, travel up to Northridge for like, the
first two games of the three-game series before Sunday’s
finale at Jackie Robinson Stadium.
But make no mistake, those bubble-gum smacking Valley boys can
play baseball. The Matadors have a 24-6 overall record and are
playing like, totally awesome after winning the Clash of the
Conferences Tournament last week.
“They are a legitimate team,” UCLA head coach Gary
Adams said. “Sean Larkin and Adam Nikolic are great hitters,
but they have great hitting through the entire lineup.”
The Matadors are hitting, like, out of this world. They have a
.308 team batting average with 33 home runs in just 20 games.
This offensive firepower should match up well with UCLA bullpen.
As if! What-ever!The UCLA bullpen almost gave up an eight run lead
against LMU on Tuesday.
Bruin pitcher Mike Kunes said that every slot remains open in
the UCLA bullpen.
The Bruin starting trio of Chris Cordeiro, Mike Kunes and Casey
Janssen, which has been pitching totally awesome this season, will
be broken up in an attempt to fix their ailing bullpen.
“We’ve got problems between the sixth and eighth
innings,” Adams said. “So we’re having open
tryouts this week for pitchers to pitch in those
innings.”
UCLA pitching coach Gary Adcock will sacrifice Kunes to the
bullpen gods in order to give some late -inning stability to the
pitching staff.
Wes Whisler will like, try to take Kunes’ place in the
starting rotation. The freshman pitcher has a 4.50 ERA in 28
innings of work.
Whisler will pitch on Friday in order to maximize the match-ups
of their two best pitchers, Cordeiro and Janssen, who will totally
start on Saturday and Sunday.
The Bruin pitchers will, like for sure have a new backstop this
weekend. Regular catcher Josh Arhart has been sidelined by a
nagging hamstring injury, so senior Casey Grzecka will start in his
place.
Grzecka, who is hitting .320 with eight doubles already this
season, knows that his main job this weekend is behind the
plate.
“We need to initiate some low-pitch innings and get the
starters ahead in the count,” Grzecka said. “If we
stick with our game plan and mix up the pitches, we’ll pitch
well this weekend.”
If, like the Bruins can fix their bullpen woes this weekend,
then like the matchup between them and the Valley hitters will be
like, totally awesome.