June is when college baseball teams want to be playing their best baseball, but May is when momentum can be built toward a deep postseason run. But Arizona is going in the opposite direction as the regular season winds down.
The Wildcats lost 13-5 to Utah on Saturday night at Hi Corbett Field, extending their losing streak to a season-high four games and ensuring a home series loss to a team tied for last place in the Big 12 which is more likely to miss the conference tournament than make it.
“We got to match their intensity, they beat us in every phase of the game,” UA coach Chip Hale said. “That team over there is playing for their life, and they’re playing their tails off. Last year at this time they were in first place with us and they have pretty much the same team and same pitching staff. They’re playing like they did last year..”
For the third straight game Arizona (33-17, 15-11) struggled mightily at the plate, managing only one hit through the first six innings before finding its strike late. But it was the UA pitchers who combined for an abysmal performance, issuing 13 walks and hitting four batters.
The 13 walks were most since 2020—most in a conference game since 2019—and eight of the 17 free passes came around to score. Three runs scored on wild pitches.
“It’s just not executing pitches,” Hale said. “Just poor on the mound tonight.”
Utah (20-25, 7-19) chased UA starter Collin McKinney in the third inning, giving up only one hit but walking four and hitting another. Raul Garayzar followed and went four hitless innings but issued three walks and hit two Utes, giving up a run.
Garrett Hicks threw a scoreless 7th—despite walking one and hitting another—and Andrew Cain hit a 2-run home run in the bottom of the inning to get Arizona within 5-3, but after that Utah scored more runs than it made outs.
The Utes scored four times in the 8th off Hicks and Julian Tonghini and four more in the 9th off Carson Johnson. Utah finished with nine hits, eight over the final three innings.
Cain’s homer was Arizona’s second hit. It would get six in the final two innings including four in the 9th when it scored twice. Garen Caulfield hit a solo homer and another run came in on an error.
“We need to carry that over for tomorrow,” Hale said. “We just got to win. Gotta play the best we can, have the best at-bats we can and execute pitches the best you can. Right now we’ve just got to give it whatever we can, the best we can, and hopefully it’s enough to win a game tomorrow. People always want to talk about postseason, this and that. We’re a long way from that right now, we need to start playing our type of baseball.”
Arizona is tied with Kansas State for fifth place, a game behind Kansas in the loss column. The top four finishers in the regular season get a bye into the Big 12 Tournament quarterfinals.