Salt Lake City, UT—The UC Riverside Baseball Team takes a break from Big West play this weekend, traveling to Utah for a three-game series against the Utes.
This is the third time the Highlanders have faced a Pac-12 team this season. They split a four-game series against Washington in late February, and a two-game series at Arizona at the end of March.
UCR's pitching continued to improve last week reducing its collective ERA to 4.33. That's a drop of nearly a run per game since early March. The Highlanders are also on pace to strike out more batters than in any year since 2007, which was the last time they made the NCAA Tournament.
Friday night starter Austin Sodders (3-2, 2.84) won his third straight decision last weekend in a 3-1 victory at UC Irvine (
box score/
recap). He continues to average more than a strikeout per inning, and has lowered his ERA by nearly two runs over his last five outings.
Ricky Delgado (0-5, 4.78) takes the mound on Saturday. Hie ERA has dropped by more than a run over his past two starts. During that time, he has posted an ERA of 2.23 allowing just 11 hits over 12.1 innings.
Keaton Leach (0-0, 2.50) makes his first start of the season on Sunday after starting the year with 10 relief appearances. He has just under a three-to-one strikeout-to-walk ratio with 17 Ks and six walks.
UC Riverside's offense has struggled over the last four games, however, hitting .201 in four games last week. Vince Fernandez still leads the squad with a .339 batting average and a .424 on base percentage. Mark Contreras has an eight-game hitting streak entering the week and is hitting .371 over that span.
Utah is 11-18 heading into the week, but 8-4 in the Pac-12 following a three-game sweep of Arizona last weekend. The Utes dropped their most recent game, 14-3, on Tuesday at BYU.
Offensively, Utah is hitting .257/.349/.345 with just two players in the lineup hitting better than .300 on the season—Cody Scaggari at .313 and Kellen Marruffo at .307. Max Schuman leads the Utes with a .410 on base percentage, while Scaggari is the top power bat in the lineup with a .446 slugging percentage.
Utah's pitching staff has an ERA of 5.21, and the team's defense has committed 33 errors which have led to 35 unearned runs. The Highlanders will face righty Jayson Rose (4-3, 2.85) on Friday. Rose has struck out 59 batters in 53.2 innings, and opponents are hitting .219 against him.
Right hander Dalton Carroll (2-4, 5.65) gets the nod on Saturday, followed by lefty Josh Lapiana (2-3, 4.24), Sunday. Carroll has 20 strikeouts and 19 walks in 36.2 innings while allowing opposing hitters to hit .357. Lapiana has struck out 22 and walked 15 in 46.2 innings of work while opponents hit .310 off of him.
Dylan Drachler (1-2, 2.95) is the team's closer with five saves and 25 Ks in 18.1 innings.
The Highlanders are 1-3 all-time against Utah (
all-time results), but the team's haven't played since the 2001 season.
