Ricky Oropesa and USC slapped ASU.
Photo by Crystal Ochoa/The Arizona Republic

It wasn’t easy but the Arizona Wildcats won a Pac-10 baseball series away from home for the first time this season.

Elsewhere in the Pac-10, Oregon State got some help from its friends to extend the Beaver lead in the conference race.

In the stat department, the top of the league batting chart is getting crowded with Cats.

The weekend started poorly for the UA as Kurt Heyer couldn’t hold a 4-run lead in the opener. Arizona rallied in the 9th to force extra innings but Washington State won it in the bottom of the 10th when Matt Chaffee went from a two outs, bases empty situation to walking in the winning run.

Kyle Simon kept the series alive for the Cats with a complete game victory on Sunday. He was named the Pac-10 Pitcher of the Week for his efforts.

The Saturday-to-Monday series didn’t allow Arizona to take advantage of its Friday magic but maybe the Wildcats are just as comfortable on Mondays. The UA took the series by moving to 2-0 on the season when playing on the first day of the work week.

Let’s work our way around the Pac-10:

ARIZONA won two of three at WSU.
Scores: 6-7 (10 inn.), 8-1, 6-4
At 11-10 in Pac-10 play, the Wildcats are now above .500 for the first time since starting 1-0.

OSU won two of three at Washington.
Scores: 6-4, 9-3, 6-7
Oregon State had to play another double header and settled for another split. But there were no sweeps around the conference so no one gained any ground. In fact…

USC won two of three vs. ASU.
Scores: 5-1, 4-7, 6-2
The Sun Devils had gone 13-2 since getting swept by OSU but losing this series should put an end to their quest for a 5-pete.

Oregon won two of three vs. Stanford.
Scores: 6-2, 8-9, 6-5
Stanford’s loss gives the UA sole possession of 5th place.

UCLA won two of three vs. Cal State Bakersfield.
Scores: 1-5, 10-1, 3-2
The Bruins had lost three straight games to three different California schools – Long Beach State, UC Santa Barbara and Bakersfield – before rebounding behind – you guessed it – Trevor Bauer.

Cal didn’t win.
All that nothing for nothing.

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How the Pac-10 stacks up in the eyes of the college baseball world:

BAS = Baseball America
COL = Collegiate Baseball
NAT = National Collegiate Baseball Writers
PER = Perfect Game
USA = USA Today/ESPN coaches’ poll

UCLA dropped out of another poll but everyone else stayed in the polls they were in last week and stayed out of the polls that had previously omitted them. The Pac-10 composite pecking order remained the same as well.

There was no change in the conference batting race either. Both Joeys saw their average drop over the weekend by Arizona’s Rickard’s dropped less so he closed the gap on ASU’s DeMichele.

The real change was at the bottom of the top 10 where a red-hot Alex Mejia moved in giving the Wildcats half of the ten best hitters in the conference:

If all five Wildcats keep hitting the odds of staying above .500 in Pac-10 play go way up.

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Bryce Ortega and the Cats stopped their slide.
Photo by David Wallace/The Arizona Republic

One man’s desperation is another man’s inspiration.

The week began with the Arizona Wildcats baseball team gambling to try and win a single game against ASU. The week ended with a sweep of USC that injected life into a fading squad.

UA coach Andy Lopez looked desperate Tuesday night. Midweek games are supposed to be handled by second-line pitching with the top arms reserved for the “real” games on the weekend. But there was Wildcat ace starter Kurt Heyer throwing six innings in a non-conference game against a team that had already beaten the Cats three out of four times.

The move backfired and the Sun Devils won again. Arizona appeared to be grasping at straws and gasping for air.

Go ahead and exhale, BatCat fans. There’s life in this team yet. A Pac-10 series sweep’s worth of life.

It wasn’t easy. Well, two of the games weren’t. Saturday night’s contest was a 20-4 laugher but the bookends were hard-fought battles where the home team had to come from behind.

In the series opener the Wildcats rallied in the 5th and 8th innings before winning it in the 10th. On Sunday the deficit was 5-0 after three innings before Arizona scored eight unanswered runs the rest of the way.

“It could’ve been real easy for these guys to say, ‘Aw, here we go again,’” Lopez said about trailing early on Friday. “I thought they did a great job of just battling through it. I’m real proud of them.”

The UA offense piled up 32 runs in the three games but the true heroes came out of the Arizona bullpen. Maligned most of the season, the Wildcat relievers were exceptional against USC, picking up all three wins in the series.

Matt Chaffee, Vincent Littleman and Bryce Bandilla each recorded a victory as the trio combined to pitch 12 innings of shutout baseball.

Chaffee, the best closer in America with a 5+ ERA, now has five wins and five saves on the year. He didn’t want to come out of Friday’s extra-inning game and was ready to close it out again Sunday afternoon.

“I wanted it to be on my back,” the junior left-hander said.

Sunday’s win was the true breakthrough for this team. It marked the first time the 2011 Wildcats had won the third game in a Pac-10 series. The Friday magic has been strong. The Sunday curse is finally over.

The beauty of a sweep is it effectively turns one of your previous series losses into a win. The Cats still have only won two of six league series but their Pac-10 record now sits at an even 9-9.

Last year’s team lost six consecutive series to end the season. This year’s team is looking to pull a reversal.

The next hurdle is the final non-conference series, a matchup with Alcorn State. The Braves are just 22-20 overall but have already clinched the SWAC Eastern Division and will bring a 10-game winning streak to Tucson.

After that the Wildcats leave town for back-to-back Pac-10 road series before closing out with three at home. The good news is the UA’s three remaining conference opponents – Washington State, Stanford and Washington – all have losing records in league play.

The potential is there for this team to go on a nice run to finish up the regular season. Can the Cats maintain their intensity and level of execution?

“Now that we know how many games we have left and how much we need to win I don’t think we’re going to be down,” Chaffee said. “I think the rest of the year we’re going to be focused every inning.”

If it was desperation that fueled Arizona against USC, let desperation reign.

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The Beavers and their great uniform font are coming to Tucson.
Photo by Matt Pavelek/The Arizona Republic

Final Four? What Final Four?

It’s the first full weekend of the final season of Pac-10 baseball. After this year the 10-team league will become the Pac-12 and feature…10 teams.

Let’s play some ball!

The five series all run Friday through Sunday and TWIT-Pac has you covered from the first pitch to the final out. The listed rankings are the average of the five polls which can be found right over here.

#23.6 OSU (18-6 / 0-0)
at #17.6 ARIZONA (19-7 / 1-2)
The only series of the weekend featuring two teams ranked in all five polls. The Cats play five of the nine Pac-10 series on the road this year so taking care of business at home is crucial.

#30.0 Oregon (14-9 / 0-0) at #6.6 ASU (18-6 / 2-1)
The Ducks have a respectable record (and one poll likes them) but they have the lowest team batting average in the Pac-10.

USC (9-16 / 1-2) at #17.2 Cal (17-5 / 3-0)
The worst part about the Trojans’ start is they’ve done it while only playing three games outside California. USC doesn’t leave the state again until April 21.

#16.6 Stanford (11-6 / 0-0) at WSU (10-10 / 0-3)
Stanford is easing into the season, having played a Pac-10 low 17 games. As a result the Cardinal will have midweek games every week the rest of the way.

Washington (7-15 / 0-0) at #20.8 UCLA (11-9 / 2-1)
The Huskies have the worst non-conference record in the league. They got swept at Cal State Fullerton, which isn’t terrible, but they also got swept at Cal State Bakersfield, which isn’t so good.

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The four teams that didn’t play a conference series last week are all on the road against teams that did. Will that add up to extra wins for the home teams?

Arizona leads the Pac-10 in team batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage. That made it all the more disappointing when the Cats could only muster two total runs in the final two games against ASU.

If pitching is your thing you need to get out to the ballpark tonight. UA ace Kurt Heyer’s 1.33 earned run average is impressive…until you realize it’s more than three times higher than the guy throwing for the other team.

Oregon State’s Sam Gaviglio is 5-0 with an ERA of 0.39. The two runs he gave up to UC Santa Barbara last week were the first two earned runs he’s allowed all year. Six starts, at least six innings every outing, two complete games (both shutouts) and 51 strikeouts compared to just six walks. So, yeah, he’s having a pretty good year.

The Cats will be starting the same three pitchers they’ve used all year but the UA has a new closer. Bryce Bandilla began the season in that role but since blowing a save at Wichita State on March 15 he has appeared in six games but hasn’t pitched in the 9th inning once.

Junior lefty Matt Chaffee has been finishing games and he hasn’t given up an earned run in his last four appearances (covering 6.2 innings), picking up two saves and a win in that span. Not a bad turnaround for a guy who gave up eight runs in one inning against UNLV.

The game time for Arizona’s Pac-10 home opener is 6 p.m. today, with a 1 p.m. start on Saturday and a noon start on Sunday.

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A second win was just out of reach for the Cats.
Photo by Michael Chow/The Arizona Republic

It started out so well for the Arizona Wildcats.

With the athletic department still basking in the glow of the basketball team’s demolition of Duke, the UA baseball squad opened Pac-10 play with a road win against their biggest rivals.

Kurt Heyer and Matt Chaffee combined to strike out 10 Sun Devils in the 5-2 victory in Tempe.

Then the hoopsters lost to UConn and the Arizona baseballers couldn’t get their shots to fall either.

Winning Friday night is where you want to be. Take the first game behind your ace and you have two games to try and clinch the series. Unfortunately for the guys from Tucson the home team won both of those games.

ASU’s combination of pitching and defense was excellent on Saturday and Sunday. In the two games the Devils only allowed three walks and didn’t commit an error. The Wildcats on the other hand issued nine free passes and committed four errors. The results were 5-1 and 8-1 wins for ASU.

Arizona State reestablished itself as the top team in the conference while the UA returned home with work to do. The good news is that trip home will last nine games and it started Tuesday night with a 12-3 victory over New Mexico.

Here’s what happened in the other two Pac-10 series last weekend:

Cal won all three vs. Washington State.
Scores: 7-0, 3-0, 4-3 (11 inn.)
The Bears started their program’s final season in style. Maybe they could move the whole team to Colorado and stay in the Pac-12.

UCLA won two of three at USC.
Scores: 8-4, 4-0, 2-6
UCLA’s #2 starter took a perfect game into the 7th and a no-hitter into the 8th. Number two starter. That’s why the Bruins remain ranked even with their 11-9 record.

That brings us to the updated polls:

BAS = Baseball America
COL = Collegiate Baseball
NAT = National Collegiate Baseball Writers
PER = Perfect Game
USA = USA Today/ESPN coaches’ poll

Both Stanford and Cal passed the UA in the cumulative rankings. The pollsters don’t know how to order the three teams behind ASU so most of them have the Cardinal, Bears and Wildcats bunched together. Conference play will show us what’s what and who’s who.

But at this point it looks like (grumble, grumble) everyone’s once again chasing the Devil.

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