Arizona Struggles Through College Baseball's Opening Weekend

Hale probably wasn't expecting an 0-3 start when he made his comments, but it's now a reality for his team after the season's first weekend.

Offense Starts Hot, Bullpen Struggles

Arizona jumped right into a high-scoring affair with Stanford to kick off the season, ultimately losing a 10-7 battle that went back and forth in the early innings. The offense hummed as Carson McEntire, Andrew Cain, Roman Meyers, and Tyler Bickers all had multi-hit games and drove in runs. The Wildcats had 11 hits on the night, four of them for extra bases and two of them home runs, but it wasn't enough.

Stanford broke the game open with a five-run sixth inning against the Arizona bullpen to take a 10-5 lead, and even though Arizona answered immediately with home runs from Meyer and McEntire, it could not push anymore runners across the plate over the final three innings.

Things looked much better on Saturday, as sophomore starting pitcher Smith Bailey impressed against No. 12 Oregon State. Bailey allowed just two runs and three hits across six innings, but again, the bullpen could not come through for the Wildcats. The Beavers scored five runs in the seventh inning off a two-run double and a a couple of singles to take a 7-5 lead.

Tony Lira brought the Wildcats within a run, but the next two hitters struck out to end the game, as Arizona left nine runners on base in the loss.

Offense Disappears

As the Wildcats tried to salvage the weekend against Michigan on Sunday, the offense was suddenly nowhere to be found. Arizona managed to score just one run in seven innings against Wolverines' starter Kurt Barr, and only managed one hit off Michigan's bullpen. It was a fairly low-scoring game overall, carrying a 1-1 tie into the bottom of the fourth.

Starter Collin McKinney didn't last long despite pitching well. He struck out eight and allowed only two runs in 4.2 innings, but the bullpen crumbled again in the sixth, and the run support simply was not there for the the Wildcats in a 4-1 loss.

It's far from the start they had in mind, and the nonconference schedule is pretty challenging. There is still time to figure things out, but the sooner they can figure out how to put together a complete performance in all phases, the better.

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