In this odd 2012 world of college baseball (low budgets and slow bats,) the 49ers now go out of conference but hardly out of town playing four of its six remaining non-conference games this week, hosting No. 10-14 UCLA on Tuesday before playing a non-conference split series with Loyola Marymount from Saturday to Monday. Saturday’s game with the Lions will start at 5:30 p.m. on Blair Field. The teams will play at 3:00pm on Sunday at Page Stadium, and then return to Blair Field on Monday to close the series with a 6:30pm start. Both the Blue and Gold and the Black and Gold have been solid of late, LBSU winning its sixth straight weekend series with two of three on the road at CS Northridge.

The result is a half-game lead in the Big West standings over Fullerton and a modest rise in the team’s offensive numbers, (improving what is still an overall mark of .257 to a league mark of .282.) The Bags pounded out 15 hits in Friday’s win, fumbled a win away in 12 innings on Saturday and then slugged the Matadors in a 12-3 victory on Sunday. Oh, yes they also found that elusive stat, the home run, as evidenced by freshman outfielder Josh Guerra and senior catcher Kellen Hoime.

Tonight’s visitors UCLA remains a contender in the Pac-12 race, just two games behind Oregon in the standings with one month to play. The Bruins are 28-12 overall, and have a fancy RPI of 4. Their talented freshman left-hander Grant Watson will make his 12th start tonight after having gone 7-1 with a 4.88 ERA in 23 appearances (11 starts). He made two relief appearances against Stanford over the weekend. Watson has become UCLA’s third pitcher in the last 10 years to make at least 11 starts and appear in over 20 games. His Niner opposition will be righty Matt Johnson, (1-3, 3.22) and as many friends as Buck wants to use. The Bruins have a strong offense that has three players hitting over .350: Tyler Heineman (.389), Jeff Gelalich (.382), and Cody Keefer (.369). UCLA leads the all-time series with the Dirtbags 57-39, and won the first game between the teams earlier this season at UCLA.

This is a get-revenge-game for LB after UCLA earned a 9-1 victory back on Tuesday, February 28, in the only other meeting between the two schools this season. Jeff Gelalich (2-for-4) was the problem child for LB and the Beach bus sailed that long and lonely concrete sea known as the 405. While Coach Buckley found some silver linings in his weekend at CSUN, UCLA head coach John Savage talked about how his team just couldn’t find the third out and had “missed opportunities”. Mostly Savage seems to focus on their upcoming weekend visit from Big 10 leader Purdue.

For the Niners on Sunday all the starters got a hit and the suddenly hot Josh Guerra continued his surge. He and Kellen Hoime each hit home runs in that 12-3 W to take the series. Guerra gave the Dirtbags the lead back in the top of the fourth inning with a solo home run and Long Beach State broke open the game in the top of the fifth. Richard Prigatano–a base hit, moved on a sac, Duffy singled to score Prigatano, ditto Ino Patron, walk by Juan Avila and clutch by Metzger for two RBIs. Sophomore Ryan Strufing threw six innings for Long Beach State to earn his fifth win of the season. Jon Maciel threw three innings of scoreless relief to pick up his second save.

Midweek Dusting

Next up is Loyola Marymount who is 9-6 in West Coast Conference and like the Bruins beat Long Beach State earlier this season 5-4 two weeks ago. Trevor Megill has been the top starter for the Lions with a 2.88 ERA and a 4-5 record, and has 59 strikeouts over 65.2 innings pitched. Zac Fujimoto leads the offense with a .306 batting average. This is the first weekend series with LMU since the teams played three in 1984 in what was also a split series. A regular mid-week partner, the Dirtbags lead the all-time series 81-47.

The LBSU press notes gush about Guerra — and deservingly. He was named the Big West Player of the Week, with six hits against Northridge, slugging 1.000 and driving in six runs with a double, a triple, and a home run. Guerra was the first Dirtbag position player to win the weekly honor since Joey Terdoslavich in 2010. Guerra is hitting .385 in conference, and has driving in eight runs for the Dirtbags.

Senior Brennan Metzger, hitting .429 in Big West games, one of four players hitting over .300 for the team in conference…the Beach is now third in the BWC in hitting while Buck and his boys have the league-best 2.41 ERA in conference play…odd game days this weekend is due to graduation activities at LMU. As Glenn Campbell would say, we just like picking and grinning so just for grins let’s play out the rest of the season. For the diamond men the pattern of winning two of three every weekend would set up a BWC regular season crown. That would be series wins over LMU this weekend, then Davis there, Northridge and Fullerton here then a Regional at Stanford.

Softball should also win out for their auto NCAA bid.

No wagering allowed.