USC’s shoddy pitching leads to defeat against Pepperdine

The numbers are disturbing, to say the least. In USC’s last six games heading into its matchup Tuesday night with Pepperdine, the Trojan pitching staff had amassed an abysmal 6.12 ERA.

Make that a 6.41 ERA in their last seven games.

USC suffered another bullpen implosion Tuesday evening against Pepperdine, surrendering eight runs out of their bullpen in a 9-4 loss to the Waves, its sixth loss in the last seven games.

“It’s almost like flipping a coin,” USC head coach Dan Hubbs said of the inconsistency in the bullpen. “You don’t know which guy you’re gonna get when you bring him in. Because they’ve all performed well at one point, but they’ve all performed poorly, too.”

In their opening nine games of the season, the Trojan pitching staff was stellar, putting up a 2.96 ERA over 82 impressive innings. But since then, their ERA has ballooned to 4.31, and their record has correspondingly dropped from 6-3 to 7-9.

Most of the Trojans’ struggles on the mound have come out of their youthful bullpen. As Hubbs is fond of pointing out, USC has had only had three poor starts in its 16 games this year. But of the six pitchers to have seen significant time out of the ‘pen this year, four are underclassmen and three are freshman. While each have dazzled at times, including during the recent rough stretch, they have also struggled through bouts of tremendous inconsistency.

“It’s a confidence thing,” sophomore pitcher Nigel Nootbaar said. “I know they have good stuff — these freshman have a lot of talent. They just have to trust their stuff and throw strikes.”

Against Pepperdine, freshman starter Brent Wheatley lasted just two innings. He allowed one unearned run but was wildly erratic and removed in favor of fellow freshman Marc Huberman. One of the more reliable relievers for USC in the past week, Huberman let up two runs over three innings, allowing Pepperdine to tie the game at three apiece.

Later, fellow freshman Kyle Davis came in and was smacked around. He gave up five runs on four hits — including a double and a homer — over just two-thirds of an inning, and also walked and hit a batter.

“Our pitchers really just have to trust themselves to throw strikes,” sophomore catcher Garrett Stubbs said, echoing the comments of Nootbaar. “I know as a hitter that with runners on base, it’s up to the pitcher to throw strikes. And our pitchers have to trust that if they get the ball over the plate, they’ll get guys out.”

As Stubbs can attest to, for all of the Trojans’ struggles on the mound, they have scuffled almost as much at the plate. USC had nine hits to Pepperdine’s 10, but the Waves outscored the Trojans by five. That discrepancy has become somewhat of a trend in recent games for USC. On Sunday, UCLA outhit the Trojans 10-5 and outscored them by a margin of 6-1. A week ago against Cal State Fullerton, the Titans outhit USC 15-10, but outscored them 11-4.

“Let the game come to you, that’s what we have to do,” Hubbs said. “We can’t press at the plate, especially with runners on. It seems like we have a few guys hitting really well, but they’re always the ones on base and we can’t bring them in.”