UCI outfielder Peabody surprised by his success
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UC Irvine center fielder Mike Peabody listened as a reporter called out the numbers he has produced at the plate this season. He responded.
“I mean, I’m happy listening to them,” he said Tuesday morning via telephone. “They sound awesome, but it’s just all the time we’ve all put in trying to do our plan, our approach.”
Peabody is batting .361 for the Anteaters, who are in first place in the Big West Conference with a record of 16-4 (22-11 overall). He is slugging .588, has a lofty on-base percentage of .492 and an OPS of 1.080. He also has four home runs and 26 RBIs; that’s only three fewer than team-leader Nathan Church, who has 42 more at-bats (139-97).
To get a better idea of how impressive this is for Peabody, he batted .312 and slugged .416 with a home run and 28 RBIs in 2019 as a sophomore in 173 at-bats. His OPS was .850 and his on-base percentage was .434.
He never really got on track in the 2020 pandemic-shortened season, batting just .246 with two home runs, nine RBIs, an OPS of .842 and an onbase percentage of .386 in 15 games; he slugged .456.
He admits he has surprised himself.
“Yeah, I’d say so,” said Peabody, still a junior after the NCAA allowed athletes to not lose a year of eligibility from 2020. “I wanted to be able to try to hit for more power this year, but I think I’ve been doing more than I thought I would, which is cool.”
Peabody explained what he believes are the differences.
“I would have to say it starts with maturity and realizing that I can’t be able to get a hit every single at-bat,” said Peabody, a 6-foot-4, 200-pound lefthanded hitter out of Mater Dei High.
“But it also goes back to our coaches, just giving us the confidence to keep going up there as hitters and helping us correct the little mechanical issues that we have and helping us with the mental side of it.”
The Anteaters this past weekend took three of four Big West games from Cal Poly. Peabody went 6 for 16 (.375) with a home run and eight RBIs, the home run and five of the RBIs coming in Sunday’s 17-1 victory.
Peabody couldn’t wait to talk about the team as a whole. The Anteaters were picked to finish third behind UC Santa Barbara and Long Beach State in a preseason coaches poll. The Gauchos (24-15 overall) sit a game behind at 15-5 in conference.
“We’ve always thought that we were the best team in the conference,” Peabody said. “We knew we had a good team coming in; we didn’t know how good we could be. But once everyone started putting things together ... like our pitching staff, we have an unbelievable pitching staff.”
UC Irvine’s team ERA is a conference-best 3.72.
The Anteaters beginning Friday host No. 22-ranked Oregon State in a three-game nonconference series. UCI will host Long Beach State (8-8 Big West) in a four-game series the following weekend and play at UC Santa Barbara the weekend after that.
Players of the week
UC Irvine junior catcher Dillon Tatum on Monday was named conference Field Player of the Week and Anteaters redshirt sophomore Michael Frias was named Pitcher of the Week.
Tatum smacked four home runs in the fourgame series against Cal Poly.
He went 7 for 11 (.636) with a 1.909 slugging percentage as six of his seven hits went for extra bases. He scored five runs with eight RBIs.
Frias pitched eight innings, allowed a run and struck out nine in Saturday’s 4-1 victory over Cal Poly; he allowed just two infield hits. He is 5-0 with an ERA of 2.23 on the season.
This and that
The Dirtbags (10-9 overall) over the weekend took two of three from Pacific in a nonconference series. They defeated the Tigers 28-10 in Sunday’s finale, banging out 18 hits and five home runs – two apiece by Jonathon Long (4 RBIs) and Javier Rosales (5 RBIs) . ... Cal State Fullerton (15-16, 8-4) took three of four from UC Davis this past weekend. A two-run double by Caden Connor in a three-run eighth inning gave the Titans a 7-6 victory in Sunday’s finale. ... CSUN (7-13 Big West) on Sunday scored a season-high in runs in a 15-8 victory over UC Riverside. Denzel Clarke went 4-for-4 with a home run and four RBIs for the Matadors . ... The other games went to UC Riverside, however. The Highlanders (10-17, 8-12) won the first three games by scores of 6-5 (11 innings), 5-1 and 8-4. Jacob Shanks’ sacrifice fly in the 11th inning gave UCR the victory in the opener.