The Arizona Wildcats are out…of excuses.
Photo by Crystal Ochoa/The Arizona Republic

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Since the Pac-10 isn’t interested in trying to get people to come to a college baseball game on Easter Sunday, this week’s series all run Thursday through Saturday.

That means TWIT-Pac is early, which means – right this minute – you get all your Pac-10 hardball info in one place.

Less talking! More info!

Last weekend’s RESULTS!

OSU won all three at Stanford.
Scores: 1-0, 8-1, 6-4
Say hello to the team to beat. Arizona has struggled through a stretch of four straight ranked teams. Well, the Beavers have played three straight…and gone 8-1.

Cal won all three at Washington.
Scores: 6-2, 8-2, 4-3
If you beat up on the bad teams you don’t have to win as many against the good teams.

UCLA won two of three vs. ARIZONA.
Scores: 4-5, 4-0, 8-5
The Cats can beat everybody behind Kurt Heyer. They can’t beat anybody behind anyone else. It’s consistency, but not the kind you want.

ASU won all three vs. WSU.
Scores: 3-1, 8-2, 10-4
The Devils last three series have all been sweeps. The games at home were W’s, the ones on the road were L’s.

USC won two of three vs. Oregon.
Scores: 2-4, 9-2, 3-1
The 16-20 Trojans now sit above two ranked teams in the Pac-10 standings.

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This week’s RANKINGS!

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

The polls now reflect the top of the Pac-10 standings (in four out of five of them, anyway). Stanford dropped out of three of the polls after getting swept, and the Cats slid closer to a similar fate after another series loss.

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This week’s SCHEDULE!

#23.4 ARIZONA (23-13 / 5-7) at Oregon (19-16 / 2-7)
The Wildcats are now done with the four best teams in the league. If they’re going to turn things around, now is the time. Can UA baseball do the opposite of the football team?

WSU (14-17 / 2-10) at #8.4 OSU (27-7 / 8-1)
First place hosts last place. The Sam Gaviglio no-hitter watch starts now.

#17.6 UCLA (20-12 / 9-3) at #28.4 Stanford (17-12 / 3-6)
The Cardinal has lost five straight Pac-10 games. Don’t worry; they have four weeks to get better before facing Arizona.

#9.8 ASU (25-9 / 8-4) at #18.2 Cal (24-9 / 9-3)
Now we’ll start to see if the Bears are for real. The Sun Devils aren’t used to residing in 4th place.

USC (16-20 / 6-6) at Washington (11-23 / 2-7)
At the moment the Pac-10 is shaped like a swimsuit model: Full on top and at the bottom but thin in the middle. USC is the belly button.

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It’s not surprising that Arizona gets better pitching when Kurt Heyer is on the mound. But it’s the run-support numbers that make the UA’s one-win-forward-two-losses-back routine even more puzzling.

The Wildcats have scored 34 total runs in Heyer’s Pac-10 starts. Kyle Simon has gotten just 15 runs of support while Tyler Hale has been backed by 20.

Even if you drop the 18-0 game down to 8-0 the UA still averages a full run more per game against the other team’s best starter than they do against the #3 starters, and two runs per game more than against the #2 guys. It makes no sense.

The Oregon Ducks have the third best team ERA in the Pac-10 and they move up to second if you only look at conference games. This will not be an easy series for Arizona, especially on the road, but if the Cats want to be a ranked team, if they want a decent seed in the NCAA tournament, the wins need to start happening right now.

WINS!

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Scott Terrell strives for literary fuel efficiency. Save the planet on Twitter and Facebook.

Gerrit Cole has been scarier than the IRS.
Photo by Deirdre Hamill/The Arizona Republic

Have you filed your taxes yet?

The Arizona Wildcats baseball team is hoping its adjusted gross income includes another series win but they’re facing a pitching staff that doesn’t allow many deductions.

TWIT-Pac is here to audit the weekend’s hardball schedule.

As usual, the listed rankings are the averages of the five polls:

#20.0 ARIZONA (22-11 / 4-5)
at #19.2 UCLA (17-11 / 7-2)
Early in the season UA coach Andy Lopez said, “Somebody tells me everybody and their mother is ranked in Pac-10 baseball.” As the Cats get set to face a Top-25 team for the fourth straight weekend it probably feels like everybody’s mother, sister, aunt, and three cousins once removed.

#12.2 OSU (24-7 / 5-1) at #18.6 Stanford (16-9 / 3-3)
The Beavers now have everyone’s attention, but how will things change as Oregon State goes from home underdogs to road favorites?

WSU (14-14 / 2-7) at #11.2 ASU (22-9 / 5-4)
Arizona State tries to make Wazzu “Fear the Fork.” (No, I can’t type that without giggling.) Considering the Devils still have to play Cal, Stanford and UCLA they can’t afford even one loss this weekend if they want to win the league a fifth straight time.

#20.0 Cal (20-9 / 6-3) at Washington (10-20 / 2-4)
The Huskies have won three of four, all on the road. This is the Bears’ last respite before their schedule fills up with ranked relatives.

Oregon (16-4 / 1-5) at USC (13-19 / 4-5)
Wildcat fans should be rooting for the Ducks. If things don’t go well in L.A. the UA could wake up Monday morning in 7th place.

The flip side is Arizona has a direct shot at one of the teams above it.

The Cats’ 3-0 record on Pac-10 Friday nights will be severely tested against Gerrit Cole, he of the two consecutive complete-game wins. On paper this is a pitchers’ duel to end all pitchers’ duels. UCLA has already played two 1-0 games, three 2-1 games, two 3-2 games and a 2-0 game. If you’re in the Los Angeles area and you have an hour to spare you may be able to take in the whole game.

As poorly as the Bruins hit if you get any kind of lead against them you’re in a great shape. The problem is they make it extremely hard to score, let alone build a lead.

Putting the ball in play will be at a premium. Bunting will be crucial. Every run will be worth about 57 barrels of crude oil.

The game times are 6 p.m. Friday, 2 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday. Kurt Heyer and Kyle Simon will take their normal starts but Arizona’s game three starter is listed as TBA, which means Lopez’s patience is wearing thin with Tyler Hale.

You can listen to Saturday and Sunday’s games on 1290 AM in Tucson and you can get all three games via free online radio through UCLA.

Maybe your bullpen be strong and your tax refund large.

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Scott Terrell thinks all forms should be EZ. Itemize your sports on Twitter and Facebook.

Cole Frenzel wasn’t feeling like dancing against ASU.
Photo by Michael Chow/The Arizona Republic

It started out so well for the Arizona Wildcats.

Isn’t that what we said last week? Unfortunately, yes.

After starting the season 17-5 the UA has lost three straight and five of eight, including a home loss to Arizona State. It’s enough to make a team ready to fight and that’s almost what happened after both benches cleared Tuesday night.

ASU appeared to be coasting with a 6-1 lead in the 4th inning when Cole Frenzel was hit in the back with a first-pitch fastball. Frenzel had been hit in the helmet his previous time up and exchanged words with Sun Devil pitcher Kyle Ottoson and second baseman Zack MacPhee.

Both benches cleared but the umpires and coaches maintained order with only Arizona’s bullpen catcher, TC Mark, getting ejected (a strange way for the freshman to get into his first boxscore).

The game resumed, ASU center fielder Andy Workman made a diving catch to snuff out the UA rally, and ASU cruised to a 10-5 victory. With the win the Devils clinched the season series for the third consecutive year.

The bigger issue is the Wildcats lost two of three at home to Oregon State over the weekend to fall to 2-4 in Pac-10 play. For the second straight series Kurt Heyer was magnificent Friday night only to see the team falter in the next two games.

The sophomore K-maker threw his first complete game of the season in an 18-0 shellacking of the Beavers. With Heyer’s pitch-count rising coach Andy Lopez considered pulling him after the 8th inning but Heyer was able to talk him out of it.

“He sensed that I wanted it very badly,” the righthander said Friday night. “He gave that last inning to me and I got that last zero. It felt great.”

The good feeling didn’t last long as starting pitchers Kyle Simon and Tyler Hale weren’t able to match Heyer’s performance and the UA hitters couldn’t come close to duplicating the offensive outburst as OSU took the series with 10-4 and 8-4 wins.

Lopez is mostly concerned with his slumping pitchers. “My whole career has been based off of two real basic things,” he said after the ASU game. “You gotta pitch and play defense, and we’re not pitching in a couple situations and it’s costing us right now.”

The Arizona coach indicated he’s going to reconsider how he’s using his bullpen arms. He said, “Right now we’ve got a couple guys that don’t throw enough strikes to be pitching at this level.”

It won’t be a difficult decision on Friday at 6 p.m. when Kurt Heyer gets the ball again as the Cal Bears come to town for another Pac-10 series.

Here are the rest of the results from around the conference last weekend:

ASU won all three vs. Oregon.
Scores: 5-2, 3-1, 8-0
The Ducks are the worst hitting team in the Pac-10 and no amount of uniform combinations is going to change that.

Cal won two of three vs. USC.
Scores: 6-10, 9-2, 9-6
Cal sits in a 1st place tie but the Bears’ schedule is backloaded with the league’s top teams.

UCLA won all three vs. Washington.
Scores: 2-1, 5-3, 3-2
The Pac-10’s third 1st place team is the second-worst hitting team in the conference, but you only have to score one more than the other guys.

Stanford won two of three at WSU.
Scores: 8-10, 22-3, 4-3
The Cougars started strong with an 8-run 8th to take the first game but the Cardinal bounced back to win the road series.

Those games brought about these rankings:

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

Oregon State’s road series win propelled the Beavers over both Arizona and UCLA in the rankings. Oregon’s oh-fer convinced that final poll to exclude the Ducks.

A word of advice if you’re coming to Frank Sancet Stadium to see Kurt Heyer and the Cats: Get to the park early and don’t dilly-dally with your Dippin’ Dots. The umps make sure that first pitch is in the air right on time if not a couple minutes early.

It’s up to the Wildcats to make that pitch a strike.

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Scott Terrell didn’t think to get ejected when he was a bullpen catcher. Charge the mound on Twitter and Facebook.

It’s much better to win three surprisingly close games than to surprisingly lose.

Coach Andy Lopez doesn’t mind the close games. “It’s good,” he said. “It’s going to force these young guys to play the game properly. Learn to bunt, learn to hit-and-run.”

The UA didn’t hit any home runs in the series.

Continuing the pitching-and-defense theme that Lopez has preached since the start of the season, an interesting development has been junior Kyle Simon closing the gap on sophomore Kurt Heyer as the team’s ace. When comparing weekend starts Heyer has the slight ERA edge (1.42 to 1.57) but that may not be the most important stat.

“The whole thing for Friday night is you want a guy who’s going to set the tempo for the whole weekend,” said Lopez. “You need seven innings. You don’t want to go to your pen in the 4th and 5th innings.”

Heyer has pitched 19 innings in his three weekend starts while Simon has logged a total of 23. Those extra four outs a game could be the difference. “(Simon) may make a push before Pac-10 play for Friday night,” Lopez said.

It’s a good problem to have. The efforts of Simon and #3 starter Tyler Hale are the biggest causes for Arizona optimism. Hale has gotten into the 7th in each of his three starts with a 1.83 ERA.

You’re not always going to win the battle of aces on Friday nights, but if your #2 and #3 pitchers are better than their 2nd and 3rd guys you’re going to win a lot of series.

The Wildcats travel to UNLV for games this Tuesday and Wednesday before returning home for a three-game series against Northern Colorado starting Friday.

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Scott Terrell is giving his bullpen a rest. Take the mound on Twitter and Facebook.

Coach Andy Lopez was especially pleased his team only walked four hitters and committed just two errors in the three games. “Our plan for success this year is going to be pitching and defense,” he said.

With cleanup hitter Steve Selsky on the shelf with a hand injury it was senior DH Josh Garcia filling the early void with two home runs Saturday and a Sunday grand slam. “To have Garcia the way he’s going right now is picking up some slack,” Lopez said.

Garcia credits his fast start to a change in his batting stance due a knee injury that hampered him most of last season. “I was a high leg-kick guy,” he explained. “Now I barely even stride.” It certainly didn’t hurt that there was a stiff breeze blowing out to left. “I took advantage of it this weekend,” the right-hander said with a laugh.

Sophomore pitcher Tyler Hale got the win on Sunday with six strong innings. His first career start was the final game of the 2010 season so it was a long wait before start #2.

Hale doesn’t do a lot of waiting on the mound. “I think (working quickly) keeps the batters off balance,” he said. “I feel like I’ve got endurance and I like to use it to my advantage.” With the February wind blowing through the stands the fans appreciated it as well.

It was all smiles after beating up on the Bison of NDSU but the Wildcats know the level of competition jumps up in a hurry. With a road series at Long Beach State starting on Friday and a couple midweek games against Rice in Tucson, the UA will have five games in six days against traditionally strong programs. “The world gets pretty busy for us right now,” Lopez said.

The players are looking forward to the early travel. “Honestly, I think it’s a good thing,” said Hale. “Last year we kind of died down. Getting some (away games) early will help us later in the season.”

“We have some pretty tough road games in the Pac-10,” Garcia added. “Going to A-State, going to UCLA. Next weekend will prepare us for the Pac-10. That’s where the games count.”

Lopez knows the conference will again be tough. He said, “Somebody tells me everybody and their mother is ranked in Pac-10 baseball.”

That doesn’t mean the head Wildcat isn’t optimistic. “I really felt pretty good about this group going into the weekend,” Lopez said. And now?

“What I felt is probably on the money.”

Garcia agreed. “It’s a real tight group. Once we have this uniform on, we’re a family.”

With a more experienced team Lopez has greater expectations. “We need to make a deeper run in the postseason,” he said. “You’ve had a full year of college baseball. Now it’s time to get to the next notch.”

Josh Garcia is looking to make it a couple notches deeper his senior year. “Our #1 goal is to go to Omaha,” he said. “That’s why a lot of us come to Arizona.”

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The Cats had to hang up their high-fives for the year.
Photo by David Kadlubowski/The Arizona Republic

The Arizona Wildcats baseball team saw its season end with two losses in three games at the Fort Worth Regional in the 2010 NCAA tournament.

The weekend got off to a good – albeit uncomfortable – start. The Wildcats built a 10-4 lead against Baylor in Friday’s game before the Bears stormed back with five runs in the bottom of the 9th to put a real scare into the guys from Tucson.

Saturday’s game was against host TCU and its 1st-round pitcher Matt Purke. The Cats fell behind early as Kyle Simon gave up six runs in 3.2 innings and the UA never got closer than three runs.

That set up a do-or-die rematch with Baylor and the Wildcats did not do. The Bears took the lead for good in the 8th thanks to a hit-by-pitch, sacrifice bunt, intentional walk, error and sacrifice fly.

You would have liked to see Arizona get another crack at the regional’s top seed but that didn’t help Baylor any as BU was promptly shut out, 9-0, and eliminated by TCU.

Shortstop Alex Mejia was the UA’s best hitter in Fort Worth, batting .636, but that’s not a surprise since he was the team’s hottest hitter for the last part of the year. The surprise is that he stayed in the 9th spot in the batting order the entire time.

The college baseball season is too short to ignore hot streaks or ride out slumps. If a guy’s on a roll you have to get him to the plate as many times as possible. Mejia produced eight runs in the regional. How many more would he have put on the board if he was hitting before or after Josh Garcia?

Garcia was the out-of-nowhere batting star with five hits and two home runs in the three games. The junior is the big what-if for the season. He played the whole year with a tear in his knee and never could get things going. His slugging display in Fort Worth (including a shot against Purke) gave him three homers in just 12 starts. It’s easy to extrapolate that into some nice power numbers over a full season.

The surprise pitching star in the regional was Tyler Hale. Coach Andy Lopez played a hunch and gave the freshman his first career start in the Baylor rematch. Hale responded by going seven full innings allowing just three hits and two runs. Perhaps Hale as a starting pitcher is the second big what-if for the season.

So 2010 comes to a close for the BatCats. The obvious highlight was the 15-game winning streak, but the absolute best stretch was a 12-day span in mid-April. The Cats took two of three at Washington for its first (and only) road series win. The following weekend featured the four-run 9th inning rally to complete the sweep against Washington State. To top it off you had the 4-2 Tuesday night win at ASU, the Devils’ only non-conference loss of the year.

It’s usually hard to identify the turning point in a team’s season, but with this squad you can pinpoint the exact moment when things went south. In the very next game after the ASU win Arizona held a 2-1 lead with two outs in the 9th against UCLA. Third baseman Seth Mejias-Brean misplayed a ground ball to allow the tying run to score. The Bruins scored four runs in the top of the 10th inning and the Wildcats proceeded to lose 15 of their 22 games.

I’m not saying one play by one kid torpedoed the season but this group of young guys really fed off each other. If things started going well they quickly built momentum. But when they hit a bump in the road they spun out of control like a teenager trying to show off in his dad’s car.

Field that grounder and you probably win the series. Beat UCLA and maybe the confidence helps you blow through the USC and Bakersfield series. Does that then turn around the 4-2 score in the final game of the ASU series for some serious momentum? Add one more to the what-if column.

Even though the team finished the season in a steady back-peddle, the bottom line is the year was a success. The goal in February was to make the tournament. Mission accomplished.

As an added bonus the team competed in Fort Worth and came away with some valuable experience. In practice you can’t mimic the pressure of close games in June. You don’t know what it’s like trying to choke off a 9th inning rally until you’re out there sweating on the mound. You don’t know what it’s like to hit representing the tying run in the 8th inning until you’re standing in that batter’s box.

The experience of this weekend – and the reality of coming up short – will serve the Wildcats well as they move into 2011.

At the top of the offseason wish list is getting Steve Selsky to come back to school. Since he turns 21 in July the sophomore is eligible for this year’s draft. Selsky led the team in batting average, home runs, RBIs, runs, slugging percentage and on-base percentage (the sextuple crown?). Considering he could be drafted again as a junior and still maintain negotiating leverage there’s a chance Selsky returns to spend another season anchoring the middle of Arizona’s lineup and gunning people down from right field. He is easily the Cats’ biggest recruit for 2011.

After that the key to next year will be the development of this year’s very active freshman class. Can guys like Robert Refsnyder, Joey Rickard and Mejias-Brean draw more walks to keep runners on the bath paths? Can the team cut down on errors (3rd most in the Pac-10) and unearned runs (71 total)?

On the mound can Kurt Heyer make the jump from Very Good to Elite? Will a legitimate closer finally step forward? Is there a quality third (and fourth) starter in the group? We saw flashes from Nick Cunningham, Stephen Manthei, Vincent Littleman and – as of Sunday – Tyler Hale. Who is going to put it together for a breakout sophomore campaign?

2010 was much better than 2009 for Arizona Baseball and the raw materials are there for a bigger step forward in 2011.

Now’s the time for the Cats to step on the gas.