This post was updated May 17 at 12:01 a.m.
The Bruins were on thin ice.
The Gauchos had the tying run aboard in the fifth and sixth innings and the go-ahead man in scoring position in the seventh. The Bruins’ relievers shut them down every time, but their offense hadn’t produced a run in four innings and had just stranded some potential insurance in the sixth.
It looked like redshirt sophomore first baseman JT Schwartz – who homered earlier in the game – would have a chance to extend his team’s one-run lead with two men on in the bottom of the seventh. Instead, the Gauchos elected to intentionally walk him and bring redshirt senior left fielder Kyle Cuellar up to the plate.
Cuellar made them pay.
“Those are the moments you play baseball for,” Cuellar said. “Ever since I was young, I wanted to play this game for a long time, and the sort of moments like that with your team and my parents in the stands make everything worth it.”
The fifth-year outfielder took one deep to right center for his first career grand slam, blowing the game wide open en route to an 11-3 victory for No. 23 UCLA baseball (30-16, 14-10 Pac-12) over UC Santa Barbara (31-18, 21-11 Big West) on Sunday afternoon. Cuellar’s home run was just the first of the inning for the Bruins, with freshman center fielder JonJon Vaughns launching a three-run jack off the batting cages in right to further seal the victory and series win.
Coach John Savage and his players have said time and time again that this team has a far different offensive identity than the one that hit 67 dingers back in 2019, especially with its home run leader – junior shortstop Matt McLain – out for the past two series. Through 46 games in 2021, however, the Bruins are now averaging exactly one per game after their three-homer outburst in Sunday’s win.
“I always say, this is sea level, man – the ball doesn’t fly here,” Savage said. “But we definitely have some offensive threats, and I think the guys just put some good swings on it. … We’ve got to be able to win a lot of different games a lot of different styles.”
The Gauchos didn’t add on any runs in the final four frames, meaning the seven-run seventh didn’t change the final win-loss outcome, but they were knocking on the door repeatedly in the middle innings.
Junior right-hander Jesse Bergin allowed three earned runs in 4.1 innings, needing 90 pitches just to get halfway through the game. After a long conversation on the mound with Savage in the fifth, he left the game with a runner still on base.
“He was in some battles,” Savage said. “I thought he maintained his competitiveness and at the end of the day, he fought. And that’s all we’re asking our guys to do.”
Senior right-hander Adrian Chaidez entered the game, and after a botched pickoff moved the runner to third, he struck out UCSB first baseman Kyle Johnson and stared him down on his way back to the dugout. The sixth ended in similar fashion, with Chaidez working around a two-out walk and a foreign substance accusation by the Gauchos’ dugout. He bounced right back by sitting down pinch hitter Bryce Willits and watching him storm out of the batter’s box.
“I was just really frustrated they were calling me out, saying that I was cheating about it, but I really wasn’t,” Chaidez said. “So when I ended up striking (Willits) out, I was really fired up, amped up that I got him. I can beat you fair and square, I don’t need to cheat to beat you.”
Senior right-hander Michael Townsend inherited a runner from junior left-hander Daniel Colwell in the seventh, but he also managed to escape the jam by inducing a fly-out with two runners in scoring position and pointing up to the sky on his way off the field.
“It was fun to watch,” Savage said. “You’ve got to have emotion in this game, you’ve just got to make sure you keep it in check.”
The Bruins briefly played from behind early after Bergin walked the first two batters he faced and allowed a single that drove in a first-inning run for the Gauchos.
Schwartz evened things up in the bottom of the frame, launching a solo homer to right center that cleared the two-story scoreboard.
UCLA tacked on three more runs in the second, first on an RBI double by redshirt junior second baseman Kevin Kendall that took a mean hop over the first baseman’s head, then off a single up the middle by sophomore right fielder Michael Curialle that drove in Kendall and junior shortstop Mikey Perez.
The Bruins went down in order the next three innings before stranding two in the sixth and pulling away in the seventh. Over the course of the whole game, UCLA’s batters didn’t record a single looking strikeout.
“That just comes along with guys being aggressive and hunting their pitch,” Cuellar said. “We have an approach with two strikes and we’re sort of relentless with it. When we’re on track and we’re right where we need to be, I think things like that are going to happen.”
Riding its third-straight series win and final nonconference series of the season, UCLA will wrap up its midweek and nonconference schedule with a home game against Nevada on Tuesday.
