Feb. 25, 2013
UCLA at UCSB Game Notes 
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Los Angeles, Calif. - The No. 12 ranked UCLA baseball team will play its first midweek game of the 2013 season, traveling up the freeway to face UC Santa Barbara on Tuesday at 2 pm at UCSB's Caesar Uyesaka Stadium.
PROBABLE STARTING PITCHERS
Tuesday, Feb. 26- 2:00 p.m.
UCLA - Cody Poteet, RHP, Fr. (0-1, 13.50, 3.1 IP)
UCSB - Greg Mahle, LHP, So. (0-0, 0.00, 1.0 IP)
LISTEN LIVE ONLINE (click here)
Tuesday's game at UC Santa Barbara will feature a live audio broadcast online at uclabruins.com. John Ramey and Tim Wilhelm will have the call. Audio broadcasts of all UCLA home games and select road games will be available at uclabruins.com this season. In addition, fans can follow pitch-by-pitch action online through GameTracker, also available online at uclabruins.com.
UCLA VS. UC SANTA BARBARA
UCLA will play its first midweek game of the 2013 season, traveling up the freeway to face UC Santa Barbara on Tuesday afternoon at UCSB's Caesar Uyesaka Stadium. The Bruins and Gauchos last met back in 2011, where the Gauchos prevailed, 5-4, over the Bruins at Jackie Robinson Stadium. Overall, UCLA leads the allt-time series with UC Santa Barbara 51-35. Head coach John Savage has an all-time record of 11-9 against the Gauchos (5-6 at UCLA).
FIRST COLLEGIATE START
Freshman right-hander Cody Poteet will make his first collegiate start for the Bruins this Tuesday. Poteet has made three appearances thus far in 2013, all of which came in relief, throwing a total of 3.1 innings. His best appearance came in the game against Minnesota on Feb. 16, where he threw two scoreless innings out of the bullpen to help UCLA earn a 14-0 shutout over the Golden Gophers. The Bonita, Calif. native was drafted by the Washington Nationals in the 27th round of the 2012 MLB Draft after enjoying a great three-year career at Christian High School (El Cajon, Calif.) and competing for club team ABD Bulldogs. Poteet went 10-1 with a 2.10 ERA and 112 strikeouts in 66.2 innings pitched for the Bulldogs in 2012.
MIDWEEK MASTERY
UCLA has won 11 consecutive midweek games dating back to last season. The Bruins concluded the 2012 regular-season schedule having gone 11-0 in all midweek (Tuesday) ballgames. UCLA also posted a perfect 9-0 record against Big West Conference foes in 2012. Serving as UCLA's midweek starting pitcher last season, Grant Watson went 6-0 with a 2.67 ERA in 11 midweek starts and limited the opposition to a .250 batting average in 54.0 innings.
BRUINS WIN SERIES AT BAYLOR
The Bruins picked up a big early road series victory this past weekend, taking two out of three from the Baylor Bears. UCLA bested the Bears on Friday, winning 4-3 behind six strong innings from starting pitcher Adam Plutko. Plutko allowed only one run on five hits in his six innings of work. At the plate, junior outfielder Brian Carroll went 3-4 with a RBI and two stolen bases to lead the Bruins. After losing the second game 5-0, UCLA bounced back and took the rubber match by a score of 5-4. Sophomore right-hander David Berg picked up the win in relief while freshman James Kaprielian earned the save after striking out the side in the ninth. Carroll led the Bruins with a .500 batting average in the series (6-12), while adding three stolen bases and a run. UCLA's starting pitchers posted a 2.89 ERA this weekend against Baylor
TAKING THE HITS
UCLA had a total of eight batters get hit by a pitch in the weekend series at Baylor, bringing the season total to 17 hit batters through six games. Junior Pat Valaika and sophomore Kevin Kramer lead the Bruins with three hit by pitches apiece. Brian Carroll, Shane Zeile, Trent Chatterton and Eric Filia have each been hit twice while Christoph Bono, Pat Gallagher and Brenton Allen have each been hit once. UCLA had a school record 104 batters hit by a pitch back in 2010.
SHUTTING THE DOOR
Freshman closer James Kaprielian earned his first two saves over the weekend, closing out both of UCLA's victories over Baylor. In three appearances this season, Kaprielian has struck out seven of the 11 batters he's faced and has allowed just a .091 batting average against him in the early going. Kaprielian was drafted in the 40th round of the 2012 MLB Draft by the Seattle Mariners after posting a career record of 33-3 with a 0.96 ERA, 250 strikeouts and 23 complete games at Beckman High School in Irvine, Calif.
ROAD WARRIORS
Since the start 2010, UCLA has gone 59-27 in all road and neutral site contests. In 2012, the Bruins went 21-6 in games played away from home, posting an 11-4 mark in Pac-12 road games. In 2011, UCLA went 14-13 in road/neutral site games, while in 2010 the Bruins recorded a 22-7 record away from home (including 7-3 at neutral site games). UCLA has gone 31-11 in Pac-12 road games since 2010. In addition, the Bruins have logged five Pac-12 road sweeps in the last three years (2010 at Washington, California; 2011 at Oregon; 2012 at Washington, Utah) and one non-conference road sweep (2012 at Georgia). The Bruins are 2-1 on the road this season after taking two out of three games at Baylor last weekend.
WELL-TRAVELED BRUINS
In nine years under head coach John Savage, the Bruins have regularly played non-conference road series against teams away from the West Coast. This year, UCLA played a three-game series at Baylor the weekend of Feb. 22-24, taking two out of three from the Bears. Last season, the Bruins traveled all the way to Athens, Ga. where they swept highly ranked Georgia in three games. UCLA also made a trip to Omaha, Neb. for their second College World Series appearance in three years last season. Aside from traveling to Omaha for the 2010 College World Series, UCLA played three games in the Whataburger College Classic in Corpus Christi, Calif., that season.
HOT BATS
The Bruins have gotten off to a hot start at the plate as five starting position players have posted a batting average of .300 or better through the first six games. Junior Brian Carroll leads the way with a sizzling .478 mark, while also putting up a team-best four multi-hit games. Carroll is especially swinging a hot bat right now, recording nine hits in his last 16 at-bats. Junior infielder Pat Gallagher has hit .400 in 15 plate appearances as well while infielders Pat Valaika and Kevin Kramer have hit .320 and .318 respectively. Kramer leads the team with three multi-RBI games while Valaika has three multi-hit games. Freshman Trent Chatterton has also hit well out of the nine spot, batting .300 through his first six collegiate games.
