At the midpoint of the season, there was only one program in the country that ranked in the top 15 nationally in run scoring, ERA and fielding percentage.
That program wasn’t Arkansas or Texas A&M or Wake Forest, the three teams this year to rank No. 1 in the Top 25. It wasn’t Clemson, Florida State or Oregon State, powerhouses that have consistently ranked in the top 10 this spring.
Instead, it was UC Irvine. The Anteaters were producing as one of the most complete and consistent programs in the country.
UCI has a rich tradition of its own, having reached the College World Series twice in the last 20 years—2007 and 2014—and won the Big West Conference in 2009 and 2021. But they have never started a season this well.
UC Irvine was 24-4 at the midpoint, the best mark in program history, and had just won a showdown series against UC Santa Barbara, which had been picked to win the conference in the preseason coaches poll.
The Anteaters were feeling good about themselves, but they knew the job was far from finished.
“We want to see how good we can be,” coach Ben Orloff said. “I told our players it’s like in your class when you get an A on the midterm. You might want to coast and get a C on the final, but that’s not what we want to be about.”
UCI stumbled a bit in the immediate aftermath of the series win against UCSB. It lost at Southern California and then lost a series at UC San Diego, the reigning conference champion, to fall to 25-7 on the season.
This story is from the May 2024 edition of Baseball America.
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This story is from the May 2024 edition of Baseball America.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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Wood Has Towering Upside- Nationals rookie James Wood also stands 6-foot-7 and also has game-changing power.
Aaron Judge and Oneil Cruz are 6-foot7 sluggers who stand out for their power in this year’s MLB Best Tools voting. Wood spent half of this season with Triple-A Rochester before making his MLB debut on July 1. While he was in the International League, he captured managers’ attention. Wood unanimously won Best Power Prospect and also claimed Most Exciting Player in a survey of league skippers. Wood hit .353/.463/.595 with 10 home runs in 52 games for Rochester. His .242 isolated slugging was the best for a player 21 or younger at Triple-A this season.
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