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Three Things We Learned
1. Feast or Famine
The Beavers took a feast-or-famine approach to the plate tonight against a formidable opponent in UC Irvine, which ultimately played a significant role in their 12-0 loss to the Anteaters in game one of the series.
Tonight’s loss to the Anteaters was one of the Beavers' worst losses in recent Goss Stadium memory, the most since the 2014 season, when they gave up 14 runs to UC Irvine in a 14-2 loss at home in the postseason.
Normally, the scoreboard doesn’t tell the whole story of a game, but you can definitely tell that it was part of this game's story as the Anteaters tallied 15 hits compared to the Beavers' five hits.
The Beavers were pretty much beaten in all aspects of the game, including on the offensive side of the ball, and head coach Mitch Canham echoed those sentiments post-game.
“They beat us in every aspect of the game…we all saw that,” Canham said. “Playing a high-quality opponent like that, in essence a post-season type of environment, and the reality is in order to move on you have to win the series, which is what we’re tasked with now.”
When the rest of your lineup can’t generate the necessary production to keep up with a ball club like UC Irvine outside of your most consistent hitters, Gavin Turley and Easton Talt, that spells trouble later in the season.
Particularly at opportunities to drive in runs with runners in scoring position, the Beavers, at one point in the game, left six runners in scoring position, including a bases-loaded situation that ended with a groundout by Trent Caraway.
“We didn’t get it done,” Canham said about leaving runners in scoring position.
Essentially, this game was a postseason game, yet the Beavers let the moment become too big for them and couldn’t capitalize on the opportunities that UC Irvine gave them to get on the scoreboard.
The Beavers just didn’t execute tonight, plain and simple, which was the opposite of what Canham described behind the scenes leading up to tonight’s 12-0 loss.
Canham mentioned that everyone was locked in and had a great week of preparation for UC Irvine in practice. However, they were not entirely sharp in bringing that practice environment into a game environment.
While it’s inherently difficult to compare practice to the game, given the saying goes of how you practice is how you’re going to perform.
The Beavers must get the job done and execute when the moment comes in game to get runs or get out of a jam, otherwise, it’s going to be a long season if they cannot do that against high-quality opponents, as the back half of the schedule has a tough stretch of opponents.
2. Zach Kmatz expanded role?
In a reversal of roles on Friday night, Eric Segura wasn’t immediately on the mound to relieve Nelson Keljo, who returned to the lineup after missing Friday’s matchup against Nebraska; instead, it was Zach Kmatz out of the bullpen.
Kmatz was the lone bright spot among the pitchers on the mound for the Beavers. As soon as he came into the game, he picked up back-to-back strikeouts immediately and stifled a red-hot lineup in the Anteaters through 1.2 innings of work.
Although the piggyback role between Keljo and Segura changed due to the flow of the game, Canham said post-game that because Keljo threw thirty pitches in the first inning, they didn’t want Segura out on the mound too early in the game.
