The college baseball season is only a week old and already Arizona has experienced a rollercoaster of results.
The Wildcats went to Arlington, Texas with their first preseason ranking in four years and promptly lose all three games, getting outscored 31-7 at the Shiners Children’s College Showdown at Globe Life Field. Then, two days later, they came home to run-rule New Mexico in an afternoon home opener at Hi Corbett Field for their first win of the season.
Playing that game at 2 p.m. on a Tuesday was a favor to New Mexico, which had spent the previous weekend playing a tournament in Phoenix and wanted to get back home. That means Friday will serve as the unofficial home opener as the UA opens a 3-game series with San Diego.
Arizona went 19-9 at Hi Corbett last season, a record that included two losses as NCAA Tournament regional hosts. The Wildcats are 15-4 all-time against the Toreros but dropped two of three to them in San Diego early last season.
Here’s what to watch for this weekend at Hi Corbett:
Rotation redux
Arizona is going with the same three starting pitchers as it did on opening weekend, sending out redshirt sophomore right-hander Collin McKinney on Friday night, sophomore righty Owen Kramkowski on Saturday afternoon and true freshman righty Smith Bailey for Sunday’s finale.
McKinney and Bailey looked great in their outings. McKinney, a transfer from Baylor, had the longest outing of the group by going 4.1 innings against Ole Miss and allowing a run on three hits with three walks and three strikeouts, while Bailey tossed four shutout innings against Louisville while striking out five and yielding three singles.
Kramkowski, on the other hand, had a first career start to forget. He failed to get out of the first inning against Clemson, allowing seven runs and eight hits while recording both of his outs via strikeout.
Bad luck contributed to the rough outing, as a potential inning-ending double play ball struck an umpire on its way through the infield, resulting in a dead ball single that put two on with one out. Kramkowski would then allow four straight hits before getting another out.
“You have to pitch through that,” UA coach Chip Hale said on Tuesday. “Kramkowski had a tough one, I’d like to see him back out there.”
Despite that performance, Kramkowski is still considered a pro prospect. D1Baseball ranks him as the No. 91 draft prospect in college for the 2026 MLB Draft.
Junior righty Casey Hintz was being considered for a starting spot, and threw the final 3.2 innings against Ole Miss, but Hale said his value may still be best suited for the bullpen. Another potential starter, Rutgers transfer Christian Coppola, could make his UA debut this weekend piggybacking off one of the other starters.
Hitting is contagious
Against New Mexico, Arizona had 11 hits including three in a row to open the bottom of the 4th when it scored three times. There were two other occasions where the Wildcats had back-to-back hits.
In the three losses in Texas, that happened once.
Hitting was expected to be Arizona’s strength entering the season, based on the number of returning players and veterans on the roster, and Hale still feels that will be the case. He wasn’t upset with the overall approach his batters had at the plate in Texas, just the results.
“You always know, when you go play in those tournaments, like we will (next week) in Houston, there’s three really good teams that are that are coached really well, and they’re going to be at the same level,” Hale said. “Trust the process. Just do what you do, whether it’s pitching, hitting, defense, base running. Don’t try to do too much. Just be who you are.”
Against New Mexico Hale moved senior Garen Caulfield from the No. 2 spot to cleanup, and he responded with two hits and four RBI. That lengthens the overall lineup and also changes the approach for junior Mason White, who has batted third each game.
White had two hits on the opening weekend, both solo home runs, while against New Mexico he had two singles and a double. It was the ninth game of his career with 3-plus hits but only the fourth that didn’t include a homer.
“I thought his best at-bat … was the ground ball base hit that the shortstop backhanded and couldn’t come up with, those are the kind of at-bats he has to have, especially late in the count,” Hale said. “If he can do that, put the ball in play hard all the time, he’s going to have huge numbers.”
About San Diego
The Toreros went 41-15 last season, winning both the regular season and conference tournament titles for the West Coast Conference. They played in the Santa Barbara Regional, going 1-2, and then had five players taken in the 2024 MLB Draft including former UA pitcher Josh Randall, who struck out 10 Wildcats in five innings last February.
This season has been an even rougher start for San Diego than for Arizona, as USD went 0-4 at home albeit to Big 12 power TCU. Two of the games were 1-run losses including a 10-inning affair on Opening Day.
There are still a handful of returners from the 2024 team that gave Arizona problems a year ago. Outfielder/left-handed pitcher Austin Smith had three homers and seven RBI and also struck out four of five batters he faced, while infielder Jack Gurevitch had five hits.
San Diego pitchers struck out a combined 44 Wildcats in the series, 19 apiece and the first and third games, but like Arizona it has a revamped staff.