Arizona baseball: Wildcats tumble down national polls

After getting swept at home for the first time in the Jay Johnson era, it’s no surprise that the Arizona Wildcats fell quite a bit in the national rankings.

After being ranked 7th by most human polls last week, Arizona now finds itself somewhere in the teens in most of them.

Here’s a look:

I guess the thing to realize here is that 16 teams host Regionals, and the top eight are guaranteed Super Regionals if they get through the first weekend. So with Arizona still being ranked 8th in the RPI, it’s not like the Utah series killed this team’s hopes to host in the postseason.

In fact, Utah is now 35th in the RPI. Them and UCLA are the only teams in the top 65 that haven’t reached the 20 win mark yet this year, so the depth of the Pac-12 probably shouldn’t be overlooked right now.

The one problem facing Arizona right now is the status of JC Cloney moving forward, and if he’ll be able to return to the mound sooner than later. As was evident this weekend, the pitching staff isn’t consistent enough to get the job done in this conference, and there aren’t enough quality left-handed options.

Arizona returns to action on Tuesday night when they host the New Mexico State Aggies for a single midweek game. First pitch is scheduled for 6 PM PT. Then Arizona will make their Bay Area trip, facing Stanford Thursday-Saturday this weekend.