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Arizona baseball: Wildcats tumble down national polls

A lot of rankings in the teens now

Arizona Baseball versus Oregon
Cesar Salazar slides back into second base
Rachel Huston

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:

Arizona Baseball rankings

Poll Ranking Previous
Poll Ranking Previous
Baseball America 17 17
Perfect Game 21 19
D1Baseball 18 17
Collegiate Baseball 19 19
USA Today Coaches Poll 19 18
RPI 15 10

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.


Pac-12 Baseball Standings

Team Conference record Overall record
Team Conference record Overall record
Oregon State Beavers 27-3 46-4
Stanford Cardinal 19-9 38-14
UCLA Bruins 18-10 29-24
Arizona Wildcats 15-12 36-17
California Golden Bears 13-14 23-28
Washington Huskies 13-15 27-25
Utah Utes 12-15 24-24
Oregon Ducks 11-17 29-24
Washington State Cougars 10-18 24-27
Arizona State Sun Devils 8-19 23-29
USC Trojans 7-21 20-33