Aggies muster only one hit as No. 10 UCLA dominates A&M, 10-2
Game #12: No. 10 UCLA 10, No. 18 Texas A&M 2
Record: Texas A&M (10-2), UCLA (10-0)
WP: Nick Nastrini (2-0)
LP: Christian Roa (2-1)
Box Score
No. 10 UCLA (10-0) was far too much for the No. 18 Aggies (10-2), who took a shellacking on Saturday night. The Bruins hit, pitched and played defense at a much higher level as they handed A&M their second loss of the season (and weekend), 10-2.
For a second consecutive night, the Aggie bats remained ice-cold, mustering just a single hit.
“I’m sure disappointed in our performance tonight, in every facet - on the mound, defensively, offensively,” said Texas A&M head coach Rob Childress. “Give UCLA all the credit. They played so much better than we did, it wasn’t even close.”
For the first time this year, the A&M pitching staff showed some serious weakness against a high-caliber ball club. Christian Roa struggled through five innings of work, in which he allowed the leadoff man to reach in every inning. The Aggie right-hander coughed up five runs on eight hits and was saddled with his first loss of 2020.
“My job was to get us off to a good start, and I obviously didn’t do my job at all,” Roa said.
Opposite Roa was a fantastic showing from UCLA starter Nick Nastrini. Although not overpowering, Nastrini struck out eight Aggies and induced a sizeable amount of weak contact. The only Aggie who really saw Nastrini well - or even got a base hit off of him - was Hunter Coleman, who launched a solo shot to left in the fourth inning to make it 4-2 at the time. Bruin pitchers struck out 14 A&M hitters in the ballgame.
“Just kind of on our heels,” Hunter Coleman said of the Aggies’ offensive show. “Definitely came out flat and weren’t aggressive.”
Childress went to arm after arm out of the bullpen, with few members of the A&M reliever parade brought their good stuff on Saturday night. A&M pitchers handed out nine walks, a frustrating number for the Aggies’ head man.
“Free base runners. They capitalized on it,” Childress said. “We don’t do that very often. We certainly did that tonight and it was nobody’s fault but our own.”
The wheels fell off in the top of the sixth when the Bruins plated four runs on just three hits, taking advantage of a Bryce Blaum error on a tailor-made, double-play ball. It was downhill from there.
“They were more aggressive and were the aggressor all night,” said Coleman.
UCLA wasted no time getting on the board when three-hole hitter Matt McLain launched a two-run shot to center. A&M would answer back immediately after Bryce Blaum reached on dropped third strike. Back-to-back wild pitches moved Blaum to third and he scored on a Cam Blake RBI groundout.
“We come back after the two-run home run and we score a run, cut the lead in half without a hit, and you know, kind of grab a little bit the momentum back,” said Childress. “We go right back and give it back to them and never were able to get it back.”
In the third inning, Kyle Cueller would leave the yard with a two-run homer of his own to make it 4-1. An inning later came the Coleman moonshot, but the Aggies would get no closer than 4-2.
UCLA would close the game with six unanswered runs, while the Aggies stranded a grand total of eight men on base. In truth, the score could’ve been much worse as the Bruins left a small village - 15 men - on base. Aggie pitchers walked nine Bruins
A&M finished the game 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position and now 0-for-8 in that category on the weekend. Defensively, the Aggies committed three errors.
“I think definitely we’ve got a long way to go,” Coleman said. “We don’t want to play our best baseball now, we want to play our best baseball at the end of the year.”
A&M will attempt to salvage their final game of the tournament on Sunday afternoon when they face Oklahoma State. The Cowboys are also 0-2 in their stint in this Frisco Classic. First pitch is scheduled for 3:00 p.m.