SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — The No. 16 UC Santa Barbara Baseball team (10-2) begins their Big West title defense this weekend, hosting CSUN (2-7) in a three-game series Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The Gauchos stay in town on Tuesday, welcoming the San Diego Toreros (2-10) back to town for a mid-week game. The Toreros were one of three teams the Gauchos hosted at last year's NCAA Santa Barbara Regional.
 
KNOW BEFORE YOU GO
Parking Impacts to Lot 30 — Due to ongoing construction, parking in Lot 30 next to Caesar Uyesaka Stadium will be extremely limited. Fans are encouraged to park in Lot 22, the garage next to the Thunderdome. UC Santa Barbara Athletics will provide assistance getting to and from the ballpark for seniors and people with mobility issues.
 
Introducing the Yardi Youth Pass — In partnership with Yardi Systems, UC Santa Barbara is offering free admission to all home baseball games for young Gauchos in 6^th grade or below. Tickets will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis, beginning 60 minutes prior to each game from the Yardi Youth Pass table outside the front gate of Caesar Uyesaka Stadium. Availability may be limited due to the stadium's capacity.
 
LAST TIME OUT
Santa Barbara welcomed back another one of their 2024 Regional guests last weekend, winning two of three games against Fresno State. The Gauchos took Friday's game, 3-1, then won in extra innings on Saturday, 8-7. A 2-1 loss on Sunday ended a streak of nine consecutive regular-season weekend sweeps for Santa Barbara. The Gauchos got back on track with an emphatic 8-1 win over USC in Los Angeles on Tuesday night. Isaac Kim and Jonathan Mendez both homered against the Trojans — a first in Blue and Gold for Kim — and freshman Nathan Aceves pitched five scoreless innings in his first career start. Also back on track is Gaucho ace Tyler Bremner, who pitched seven innings of one-run ball against the Bulldogs on Friday after going just three innings in each of his first two starts.
 
SCOUTING THE MATADORS
CSUN was picked to finish sixth in The Big West Preseason Coaches' Poll this season, but they come into the first weekend of conference play with the worst record of the 11 teams, at just 2-7. Their two wins were both solitary victories in their first two series of the season, winning the second game of opening weekend at Santa Clara and the final game of their lone home series against BYU. Last weekend, the Matadors were swept by then-No. 16 Oklahoma in Norman, though they did have a lead in the sixth inning of Sunday's game.
 
Through their first nine games, CSUN's defense is the only area that has been average or better, as the Matadors lead The Big West and rank 50^th in Division I with a .978 fielding percentage, having committed seven errors. Everywhere else on the stat sheet, the Matadors sit below 150^th out of the country's 299 Division I baseball programs.
 
At the plate, there are just three Matadors batting above .300 (to the Gauchos' six): freshman outfielder Andrew Becker, junior infielder Cameron Calvillo and redshirt freshman catcher Xavier Rios, though Rios has just three at-bats. Of those three, only Calvillo and Rios have an on-base-plus-slugging percentage (OPS) above .800, with senior infielder Roberto Gonazlez joining that club with a team-high .837. By comparison, the Gauchos have five hitters with an OPS over .800 and two over 1.000.
 
On the mound, CSUN started sophomore righty Ryan Halamicek, junior righty Noah Rinehart and redshirt junior Diego Gutierrez in that order against Oklahoma over the weekend. Gutierrez is the only one of the three with an ERA under six and is in fact one of just five Matador pitchers on the roster who meet that criterion, at 5.65. Rinehart's ERA is 8.18 and Halamicek's 9.49. Halamicek has given up seven home runs on the season, which is more than all the Matador batters have hit combined. Generally speaking, the CSUN pitching staff does not strike out many more batters than they walk, with 67 K's to 51 walks on the season for a K/BB ratio of just 1.31. In contrast, Santa Barbara's is 3.97.
 
SCOUTING THE TOREROS
There are tough starts to the season, and then there is what San Diego has gone through over the first three weeks of the year. The Toreros are 2-10 but have played four games against then-No. 23 TCU, four more at Arizona, a cross-town rivalry at San Diego State, a home series against Cal State Bakersfield (which they won) and a mid-week game against UC Irvine. The road does not get any easier this weekend, as they head to Corvallis to play at No. 8 Oregon State before visiting the Gauchos.
 
Along with the strong schedule, the Toreros are also without their biggest bat and stud defensive catcher from last season — first baseman Jakob Christian and Ariel Armas. Those two combined to score the only two runs for San Diego when they played the Gauchos last June, Armas coming home on a Christian homer. For this year, the Gauchos will now need to work on containing junior infielder Jack Gurevitch and sophomore catcher Nico Libed, the Toreros' top two hitters. Gurevitch has taken over Christian's slugger mantle, batting .409 with a 1.240 OPS and four home runs through the first 12 games of the season. His .750 slugging percentage leads all WCC hitters.
 
On the mound, the Toreros have started two different pitchers in each of their previous Tuesday games, with sophomore righty Dallin Harrison drawing the assignment against San Diego State. Junior righty David Horn, Jr. started last Tuesday night against UC Irvine but went just one inning, albeit a scoreless one, before Harrison replaced him. Harrison comes into the weekend with a 6.48 ERA.
 
FOLLOW ALONG
First-pitch times for the Gauchos' three games against CSUN are set for 4:05 p.m. Friday, 3:05 p.m. Saturday and 1:05 p.m. Sunday. First pitch against San Diego will be at 4:05 p.m. on Tuesday. Single game tickets for all of Santa Barbara's home games at Caesar Uyesaka Stadium are on sale now at ucsbgauchos.com/tickets. For fans following from afar, all four games will be live on ESPN+ with live stats available at ucsbgauchos.com/BSBLiveStats.