Dominant pitching leads Vanderbilt baseball to series win over UCLA
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Clinging to a one-run lead in to the seventh inning of Sunday’s series finale with UCLA, Vanderbilt baseball pitching coach Scott Brown didn’t want to leave anything to chance.
Brown called for closer Nick Maldonado to hold the advantage in the deciding game of the series. Maldonado dominated, striking out eight in three scoreless innings to win the game 2-1 and take two of three over the weekend at Hawkins Field.
“(Brown) just wanted to go to our best guy out of the bullpen and didn’t want to wait,” coach Tim Corbin said. “He said, ‘I don’t want to get late into a game and then bring him in,’ and now he’s got some volume underneath him. So if he was able to finish he could, but it was a great decision by Brownie.”
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Pitching dominated for both teams as Vanderbilt won the opener 6-0 on Friday, lost the Saturday game 3-0 and took the rubber match. These wins could loom large for the Commodores (5-3) in their hopes to host a regional and continue a successful start to the season after a 2-1 finish in the College Baseball Showdown.
Prime pitching
On Friday, lefty Carter Holton and righty Bryce Cunningham combined for the shutout. Holton pitched 5⅔ innings with one hit, three walks and seven strikeouts, while Cunningham threw the other 3⅓ innings with four hits, no walks and four strikeouts.
“They’re a really good strike zone team so they don’t swing at a bunch of bad pitches,” Holton said Friday. “So their approaches are really good, so just filling up the strike zone was very key.”
On Saturday, lefty Hunter Owen had 4⅔ shutout innings with two hits, two walks and seven strikeouts. Vanderbilt later allowed three solo home runs to the Bruins, two off Sam Hliboki and one off Thomas Schultz. The home runs comprised three of UCLA’s five hits in the game.
On Sunday, Devin Futrell threw five shutout innings, allowing two hits with three walks and four strikeouts. After walking two batters in the fifth inning, Futrell escaped the inning without allowing a run. Freshman Andrew Dutkanych gave up one run on two hits and a walk in the sixth but struck out two to maintain the lead for Maldonado.
“That’s a real good offensive team over there,” Corbin said Sunday. “I mean, they’re an Omaha type team. You can see it defensively and pitching-wise and offensively. Those are tough at-bats and you have to really execute.”
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Diaz clutch
Davis Diaz had an up-and-down freshman season but was the key piece offensively for Vanderbilt in the series. In Friday’s game, Diaz had three RBI, including a two-run single and a run-scoring fielder’s choice. The Commodores also made things happen on the bases in that game, as Matthew Polk beat out an infield single and Alan Espinal scored from second when a throw went wild.
The offense was quiet Saturday, as Vanderbilt was held to five singles. On Sunday, the Commodores had four hits but two of them came at the right time, as Jonathan Vastine singled and Diaz hit a two-run home run to give Vanderbilt the lead in the second inning.
Freshman RJ Austin led the way with four hits and one walk on the weekend. Enrique Bradfield Jr. had three hits and three walks. Although he broke the program’s career stolen base record during Sunday’s game, he was also thrown out twice during the series, once on Saturday and once on Sunday.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Dominant pitching leads Vanderbilt baseball to series win over UCLA