UCLA baseball suffers freak injury ahead of freaky loss in NCAA Tournament

UCLA’s top-ranked baseball team suffered a loss before the first pitch Friday.

Second baseman Aidan Aguayo, who was batting in the No. 6 spot on the lineup sheets distributed before the Bruins’ NCAA Tournament opener, sustained an injury in pregame drills.

“He rolled his ankle on the tarp, and he couldn’t play,” UCLA coach John Savage said.

It was that sort of day for the severely short-handed Bruins on the way to a 3-2 loss to Saint Mary’s at Jackie Robinson Stadium. They became the first overall No. 1 seed to lose their opening NCAA Tournament game to the No. 4 seed.

Already missing ace Logan Reddemann, who is recovering from arm fatigue, and center fielder Will Gasparino, who was serving a one-game suspension for malicious contact in the Big Ten Tournament, UCLA was now down a starting infielder.

It somehow got worse.

Outfielder Payton Brennan suffered an abdominal injury during a second-inning at-bat and tried to gut it out. But after he legged out an infield single in the fourth, he met with Savage and a trainer before departing in the top of the fifth.

That left UCLA without three lineup regulars in addition to the pitcher who would have started had he been available.

“I just feel bad for them missing the opportunity to play in a game that you went 51-6 [beforehand] and you’re excited to play in, and then you get the freak injury before the game, you get the oblique,” Savage said, referring to Brennan’s abdomen. “I don’t feel sorry for us in any way, and we better have guys that can fill in, that’s the nature of the game; I just felt bad for those guys that they had to be basically pulled from the game.”

With Brennan and Gasparino out, Savage had to realign his outfield, moving Phoenix Call to center field and Jarrod Hocking to right. They went a combined 1-for-6 for an offense that produced only six hits against two Saint Mary’s pitchers.

Savage said Brennan and Aguayo were being evaluated, with their status uncertain for the Bruins’ elimination game at 1 p.m. Saturday against either Virginia Tech or Cal Poly.

UCLA (51-7) has persevered in this sort of situation before.

After earning the nation’s top overall seed in 2019, the Bruins dropped their second game in a Regional at Jackie Robinson Stadium before rolling off three straight victories to reach a Super Regional, where they lost to Michigan.

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These Bruins will need to win four consecutive games to reach a Super Regional.

They’ve usually ruled in dramatic situations like the one they experienced Friday, having gone 9-2 in one-run games before facing the Gaels.

This was a chance to experience the flip side.

“Same thing that makes you laugh will make you cry at times,” Savage said. “We’ve kind of been playing on it a little bit, that tightrope a little bit, so I understand that.”

So, how do the Bruins prevent themselves from completely falling off that tightrope?

“It’s toughness and competitiveness; it’ll have to be won by pitches and by innings and day by day,” Savage said. “You can’t get ahead of yourself. You can’t feel sorry for yourself. It’s the nature of the tournament; it’s a four-team double-elimination tournament.

“Right when you feel comfortable, you can get uncomfortable. So right now we are a little uncomfortable, and that’s OK. That’s a good test for our guys.”