Ramirez and Walker are baseball's weekly winners
SAN FRANCISCO-- USC's AJ Ramirez slugged seven extra base hits and drove in 12 and WASHINGTON STATE's Ryan Walker struck out 12 over 11.2 shutout innings to earn Pac-12 Player and Pitcher of the Week honors.
Ramirez (Bakersfield, Calif.), who was also named to Collegiate Baseball's national players of the week, had four multi-hit and four multi-RBI games last week for the Trojans. He hit an even 9-for-18 and had a 1.22 slugging percentage. Seven of his nine hits were for extra bases, as he drove in two against CS Fullerton on Tuesday and then followed it up with 10 RBIs in the series win over Utah. His biggest game came on Saturday, when his grand slam was a part of a 3-for-5 day with five RBIs.
Walker (Arlington, Wash.) in two starts last week, scattered six hits over 11.2 innings, struck out 12 and walked three. At Washington last Monday, the freshman pitched 4.2 shutout innings en route to the 3-0 win. On Sunday, the righthander scattered two hits over 7.0 scoreless frames, striking out seven and walking one, as the Cougars lost in extra innings. Walker is riding a 16.1 inning scoreless streak over his last three outings to lower his ERA to 1.69 on the year.
THIS WEEK'S RANKINGS: UCLA (33-11) dropped to No. 5 in Collegiate Baseball, California (29-15) moved up to No. 9, Arizona State (29-15) dropped to No. 10 and USC (32-14) and Oregon State (29-14) are No. 18 and No. 19 in the rankings. In Baseball America, UCLA remained at No. 2, Arizona State is now No. 9, USC is No. 15 and California returned to the rankings at No. 23.
STANDINGS: UCLA (16-5) remains in front, as Arizona State (14-7) is 2.0 games out, followed by California (15-9) and USC (13-8).
THIS WEEK: On Tuesday, Utah is at Utah Valley, Santa Clara is at Stanford, Pepperdine is at UCLA, UC Irvine is at USC and Oregon is at Oregon State.
THIS WEEKEND: Utah is at Oregon State, UCLA is at Arizona State, Washington is at Arizona, Stanford is at USC and Oregon is at Washington State. Cal is in North Carolina to take on Campbell.
ALSO NOMINATED (PITCHERS): Ryan Walker, WSU, Bret Helton, UTAH, James Kaprielian, UCLA, Travis Eckert, OSU, Jeff Bain, CAL. ALSO NOMINATED (PLAYERS): Austin Rei, WASH, Biss Larsen, UTAH, Ty Moore, UCLA, AJ Ramirez, USC, Mitchell Tolman, ORE, Tommy Edman, STAN, Jeff Hendrix, OSU, Aaron Knapp, CAL, Bobby Dalbec, ARIZ
PREVIOUS WINNERS
Players of the Week
Feb. 16 - Scott Kingery, ARIZ
Feb. 23 - KJ Harrison, OSU
March 2 - Chris Keck, UCLA
March 9 - Dante Flores, USC
March 16 - Chris Paul, CAL
March 23 - Lucas Erceg, CAL
March 30 - Ty Moore, UCLA
April 6 – Braden Bishop, WASH
April 13 - Zach Hoffpauir, STAN
April 20 - Drew Jackson, STAN
April 27 - Darrell Miller, Jr., UCLA
Pitchers of the Week
Feb. 16 - Ryan Burr, ASU
Feb. 23 - Conor Harber, ORE
March 2 - Noah Bremer, UW
March 9 - Andrew Moore, OSU
March 16 - Mitch Hart, USC
Mar. 23 - Drew Rasmussen, OSU
March 30 - Jayson Rose, UTAH
April 6 – Joe Pistorese, WSU
April 14 - Joe Pistorese, WSU
April 20 - Andrew Moore, OSU
April 27 - Ryan Mason, CAL