Bruin starter Grant Watson was on his game today, striking out eight in 6.0 innings, helping UCLA to a breezy win over Minnesota.

After spending the first two days of the college baseball season in the wintry climes of Dallas, Texas, it felt nice to be back home in sunny SoCal. It was a great day to catch a ballgame, so I headed out to nearby Jackie Robinson Stadium to see if Minnesota could pull off the surprising weekend series win. But UCLA and its pitch staff had other ideas.

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WHAT I SAW AT JACKIE ROBINSON STADIUM.

- WESTWOOD, Calif.

The drama went out of this one in a hurry. UCLA swung the bats well and also capitalized on a few Minnesota miscues to score five runs in the first inning and boatrace the Gophers the remainder of the way. Of course, it didn’t hurt that Grant Watson was throwing bee-bees on the hill for the Bruins too. UCLA takes two of three from the youthful Gophers on the weekend.

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LINESCORE:

MINN – 0 0 0   0 0 0   0 1 0  - 1   6   2

UCLA – 6 0 0   1 0 1   1 5 x –   14  17  1

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PITCHING:

WP: Grant Watson, 1-0

LP: Jordan Jess, 0-1

Save: None

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TOP HITTERS:

Minnesota:

- Dan Olinger, 1-for-4, RBI

- Andy Hankemeyer, 1-for-4, 2B

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UCLA:

- Pat Gallagher, 2-for-3, 2BBs, 3RBI

- Brian Carroll, 3-for-4, BB, RBI

- Kevin Kramer, 1-for-3, 2B, HBP, 3RBI

- Eric Filia, 2-for-4, 2HBPs, 3runs

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RECORDS.

Minnesota: 1-2

UCLA: 2-1

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IN SUMMARY

Sophomore Jordan Jess, normally would not have been a weekend starter until 2014 but was rushed into duty this weekend due to injuries in the Gopher arms corps. It showed.

The Bruins sent 11 batters to the plate in the first inning, led off by a plunking, a bunt single, a walk, an RBI single, an RBI groundout and then back-to-back doubles from Pat Gallagher (which drove in two runs) and Darrell Miller Jr., and you can see how things didn’t get off to a rousing start for The U.

An RBI single in Brian Carroll’s second at-bat of the inning closed the inning as a second Bruin runner, Ty Moore, tried to score from second and was thrown out at the plate. But at that point it was 6-zip. What made things worse was that Bruin starter Grant Watson was so effective, the next four innings saw his opposing batters go three-and-out consecutively, and the Gopher body language started to drop.

UCLA didn’t really pile it on, scoring single runs in the 4th inning, 6th inning and 7th inning. So yes, the Blue and Gold was never threatened in this one. In fact, today marked the second straight game where the Bruins scored 14 runs on Minnesota, exacting some revenge from Friday’s big upset loss to the Gophers.

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KEY MOMENT:

None, really. If anything, things might’ve been scripted a little different had the Gophers scored in the top of the 1st inning, and they had a chance too. Troy Larson got on with an infield single with one out and Dan Olinger made it two men on as he got on with the help of an error. So Minny had men at first and second with one out and promising prospects to get some runs. But Watson got back-to-back strikeouts on Alex LaShamb and Michael Handel.

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KEY STAT:

Two hits.

That’s all that Grant Watson gave up in his 6.0 innings of work. On top of that, he also didn’t issue a single walk and didn’t plunk anyone. Watson finished his 86-pitch stint with eight strikeouts too.

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GAME BALL GOES TO:

- Grant Watson.

But give a special nod to No. 2 hitter Brian Carroll, who got on base four of his five at-bats and scored twice, and to No. 6 hitter Pat Gallagher who got on base each of his first four at-bats, including that huge two-run double in the first to put a big damper on Minnesota’s comeback hopes.

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MY Q&A WITH MINNESOTA COACH JOHN ANDERSON.

Despite the crappy finish, I caught up with Coach Anderson just before he boarded the bus and talked about the weekend that saw his charges pull out a big win on Friday before getting drubbed considerably on Saturday and Sunday.

Minnesota coach John Anderson liked the effort in Friday night's big upset win in 10 innings and thinks this trip will pay dividends down the road, especially when weekend starters D.J. Sneldon and Alec Crawford come back full strength.

Me:

Considering that big win on Friday, what do you take away from the weekend out here in SoCal?

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Coach Anderson:

Well we like playing good competition early, it exposes your weaknesses and tells you what you need to work on. And it also gives our younger guys a feel for the type of environment they’re going to have to eventually get used to. I mean, we could find some mediocre competition to play and get a false sense of how good we are, but we’re trying to have a good team here which will compete with anybody at the end of the year, so you have to do some of this. The big key is to not let your kids lose their confidence from a bad outing or two.

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Me: I wish I was here for Friday’s game. You still have that big win to fall back on.

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Coach Anderson:

It was a good game. Two good teams really going after each other and playing hard. We just had better at-bats in the last part of the ball game. We got out of the bases-loaded, 3-2 count in the 8th inning with Billy Soule, who is a senior who has been in that spot many times before and he came through again. It was very well-played and to be honest we used up all our best bullets in that game. So that’s what happens in three-game weekends against good competition.

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Me:

Speaking of, you guys came here a little a little hamstrung with your pitching, missing two weekend starters to injury in T.J. Sneldon and Alec Crawford. What’s the status of those guys getting back on the mound?

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Coach Anderson:

They should be back in mid-March. But again, it gives some of our younger guys opportunities to pitch that they wouldn’t have had before. We came here with only 10 pitchers to use and all of them were on strict pitch counts, so we knew it was going to be an uphill battle, especially after using our best guys in Friday’s win. We had to use guys in roles that they weren’t prepared to be in. But that’s why you schedule these tough games, it gives us good information about our team to go forward with.

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Me:

So what do you think is the potential for your team this year?

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Coach Anderson:

I like our team. I really do. I think we’ve got a competitive team and I think we’re going to play for the championship in our league when all is said and done. I think when we do get our pitching healthy and set up properly, we’ll be a tough team to beat on the weekend. I think we’ve got enough good lefty and righty hitting in our order and I think our defense will be really good. This weekend it was tough to come to an environment like this because I think the toughest transition to make is to go from an indoor environment (at the Metrodome) and come to an outdoor environment and try to field balls and judge fly balls. I think you saw some of our outfielders make bad jumps on balls all weekend because it was something they were trying to get used to. I really like our team, I think we’re going to be really good at the end of the year.

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Me:

Last thing, what is the latest on the Vikings new stadium? Is it going to accommodate indoor baseball or not?

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Coach Anderson:

The state passed the bill that said the new stadium has to be a “people’s stadium” so it has to have a baseball configuration, even though the Vikings want to define that differently than the baseball people want to define that. But in the end, we’re going to have a good indoor baseball facility with a legitimate configuration because the Governor signed the bill which said it had to be built to hold events in the same manner that the Metrodome had historically been used for, including baseball.

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Me:

Well that’s not just good news for you but for dozens of high schools and small colleges too right?

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Coach Anderson:

Yeah. I told them, we’re only gonna play 22 games in the Metrodome this year, but there are a total of 320 games played indoors up there before April 1st by colleges in Division 2 and 3 and NAIA and high schools, so at the end of the day it will work itself out for everybody.

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PICS.

Here are a few more images from Jackie Robinson Stadium today.

No, that's not the Safety Dance. No. 2 hitter Brian Carroll is just tossing his Easton bat and making his way to first with a walk.

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... and a few minutes later Carroll slid into home just before Gopher catcher Matt Halloran could get the relay throw.

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"I had one better than that last year, dude." First base coach Jake Silverman tells leadoff hitter Eric Filia, who is sporting a pretty good porn 'stache. Last year, Silverman had a great 'stache going most of the season.

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Slingin' sidearmer David Berg, who made 50 appearances out of the bullpen in 2012, got off to a rough start today giving up three consecutive singles in the first four Minnesota batters he faced.

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I was impressed with big boy reliever Lance Thonvold, who did a solid job in his 2.2 innings of work and should factor heavily into the Gopher plans the rest of the year.

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Kyle O'Shea's short stint wasn't as successful, giving up a pair of runs in 1.1 innings of work.

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Sometimes the best game of the day is the one going on in your imagination.

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After braving temperatures in the 30s and 40s the last few days, it was nice to get back to sunny, beautiful Southern California.

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AROUND THE COUNTRY.

Here are a few highs and lows from this first Saturday of the season.

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THREE UP.

The best of the first Sunday of opening weekend.

1- Zack Powers, Florida.

Something must be in the water here this season, coz this is the second time we’ve seen a player smash two grand slams in a single game already and we’re just coming out of the opening weekend. On Friday it was Virginia Tech’s Kenny Towns. Today, it was Powers showing his considerable power.

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2- Ole Miss.

Not sure if you can call it an upset, but the No. 25 ranked Rebels took down No. 13 TCU for the third straight day to complete the weekend sweep of the Frogs. Today’s score was a 5-2, keyed by a 2nd inning grand slam from Stuart Turner, which held up till the end due to some stout pitching from starter Chris Ellis, who got the win, and his four relievers.

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3- The Upsets.

Again, this is just opening weekend, but you have to figure some of the big stunners really were games you could classify as “upsets.” Here are a few that jumped out:

- Western Illinois beat No. 1 Arkansas, 7-5

Even if it wasn’t Ryne Stanek or Barrett Astin on the mound, Arkansas should not lose to WIU. But big ups to new Leatherneck head coach Ryan Brownlee.

- Long Beach State wins at No. 4 Vanderbilt, 13-9.

Not *too* shocking, considering the Dirtbags are going to be a decent team. Still a little surprised at the amount of offense the Beach got today.

- Liberty beats No. 6 South Carolina 3-2.

Congrats to Jim Toman on winning against his old employer. Sad thing is, the Flames should’ve won both games in today’s doubleheader after they blew a 7-0 lead going into the 8th inning in game one’s 8-7 loss.

- San Diego State took down No. 20 San Diego again, 5-3.

As mentioned above, this one may not be labeled an “upset” anymore. Aztecs sweep the three game set in the Toreros new digs.

- Bethune-Cookman finishes off No. 22 Arizona State 7-6.

Talking with ESPN color commentator Mike Rooney tonight, the Wildcats were also a dropped pop-up away from beating the Sun Devils on Saturday as well.

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And a mention to:

-  David Teasley, relief pitcher, Mercer.

I’m pretty sure Teasley is the only pitcher in the country who already has two wins on the year. Today, the Bears reliever threw 3.2 innings of 1-hit ball, with 5Ks and 2ERs in the 5-4 win over Notre Dame. Teasley also picked up the win in relief on Friday vs. Ohio State as he tossed another 3.2 inning stint, giving up two hits and zero runs in the 6-5 10-inning win.

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- Pittsburgh.

The Panthers completed the sweep at Wichita State with today’s 11-3 rout. Eric Hess set the tone with a – pause for effect – yep, a grand slam. His four-bagger came in the 6-run first inning and the Panthers never looked back.

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- The Two Taylors of UC Irvine.

Dominique Taylor went 3-for-5 with 5RBI and two doubles and Taylor Sparks went 3-for-4 with 4RBI, including a pair of two-run doubles and a home run. The ‘Eaters completed the weekend sweep of Baylor with a 15-3 whitewashing at Anteater Ballpark today. (Damn… maybe I went to the wrong game today?)

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- Georgia Southern.

The Eagles completed the weekend series win over their big brother Georgia Bulldogs of the SEC with an 11-3 rout. Ben Morgan went 4-for-5 with 3ribs, helped by a double and a home run. GSU took two of three from the Dogs.

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- Creighton.

For the third day in a row the Bluejays made a come-from-behind win at Horner Ballpark – this time without me being in attendance. CU pulls off an unlikely weekend sweep of the Patriots, who must go back to the drawing board now.

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THREE DOWN.

The worst part of the first Sunday of the season.

1- Fans who complain about a lack of home runs or coaches who want to pull their fences in to get more home runs.

As reader Gray Warren asked me, “Is it just me or does it seem like there were a lot of home runs this weekend around the country?” Zack Powers two grand salamis are another set of examples of how there is still plenty of power in college baseball and you crybabies need to stop demanding for the Gorilla Ball rated bats to come back. How ’bout just having your guys hit the weight room instead?

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2- Michigan

Arrrrrgh! For the third day in a row the Wolverines, under fiery new head coach Eric Bakich, lost a one-run battle at Cal. Today’s count was by a 2-1 score and ended in jog-off fashion as Brian Celsi hit a bases-loaded RBI single in the bottom of the 9th. That’s some frustration there boys.

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3- St. John’s

Man, this has been a tough start for the Redmen… er, Red Storm. Yes, they were expected to have some struggles with the number of losses off last year’s Super Regional qualifier, but they dropped two games today, 3-1 to Ohio State and 4-0 to Florida Gulf Coast. The Johnnies collected only nine hits in the 18 innings of play today.

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More games to see tomorrow. Will also try to get the 20 Mondays column up later on in the day.

G’night.