By Chris Jackson
Arizona Daily Wildcat
March 11, 1998

UA starter Shabansky out indefinitely

UA left-handed starting pitcher Rob Shabansky is out for at least the next two series, UA pitching coach Bill Kinneberg said.

"He's in a holding pattern right now," Kinneberg said. "He won't pitch in the next two weeks, that's for sure."

Shabansky, who Kinneberg calls "the guy who's been our most consistent starter," is 5-1 on the year with a 3.35 ERA.

The junior injured his elbow while pitching against California two weeks ago.

Sophomore southpaw Tony Milo will continue to start in his place. Milo picked up his sixth victory of the year against top-ranked Stanford last weekend, beating the Cardinal 9-5.

An example of how far the UCLA Bruins have fallen from last year came last weekend, when Arizona State came to town and shut down the vaunted UCLA offense.

ASU outscored the Bruins 28-15 in the three-game series, winning twice, 14-6 and 9-3.

UCLA is now 1-5 in Six-Pac play at home, having been swept by Stanford the week before.

The Bruins have dropped out of the top 25, and their pitching staff has been blasted so far.

UCLA's team ERA is 7.93, the result of 171 earned runs surrendered on 275 hits over 194 innings.

The Bruins' defense has given up an additional 59 unearned runs on the year.

Things won't get any easier for UCLA this weekend. The Bruins are coming to Tucson to play Arizona, the top-hitting team in the Six-Pac with a .375 average.

For the first time in conference history teams from the Six-Pac are required to play two three-game series against teams from the Pac-North. The games don't count against conference standings, but it is still a chance for the northern teams to try and show what they can do against their more nationally-recognized southern brethren.

So far, though, the Six-Pac is 7-2 against the Pac-North.

Arizona crushed Portland State in a three-game series in Tucson by the combined score of 52-8. The Wildcats will next meet up with Oregon State March 27-29 in Corvallis, Ore.

The Beavers went to Los Angeles last weekend and surprised Southern Cal by taking one of the three games, 13-6. The Trojans took the first two games of the series 9-0 and 7-4.

Washington State pulled a similar surprise at ASU. The Cougars rebounded from back-to-back losses (9-1 and 6-5) to defeat the Sun Devils 17-12. The next impending series pits the Cougars against Cal.

After that, the only ranked Pac-North team, No. 20 Washington, goes up against Stanford in Palo Alto, Calif., in two weeks.

Pacific 10 Southern Division Baseball Standings

Pac-10 record, overall mark

Stanford 7-2 19-2-1

Southern Cal 4-2 16-5-0

Arizona State 5-3 15-6-0

Arizona 5-4 23-4-0

UCLA 4-7 9-13-0

California 0-7 7-11-1

Last weekend's conference games:

Stanford 13-5-10, Arizona 4-9-4

Arizona State 5-14-9, UCLA 6-6-3

Friday's games:

Arizona State at Southern Cal

UCLA at Arizona