You never know what you’re going to see when you go to a ballgame, both good and bad. Sometimes both in the same night. One of the greatest individual pitching performances in program history ended up being for naught in Arizona’s 11-1, 8-inning loss to Kansas State on Saturday night at Hi Corbett Field.Smith Bailey struck out 15, one shy of the school record in a conference game since joining the Pac-10 in 1979, and allowed only one hit over six innings.

The sophomore right-hander left with a 1-0 lead only to see the UA bullpen, which had been collectively stellar the last two weeks, implode all at once.“You’re up 1-0 with a guy that struck out 15 guys, things are rolling, and all of a sudden it just kind of slaps you in the face,” coach Chip Hale said. “And that’s what we talk about, this game on a daily basis will rip your guts out. We have a young team, and it’s just not going to be easy.

We have to play better. It’s no fun getting run ruled at home.”Arizona (14-24, 5-12 Big 12) got its lone run on a solo home run in the 5th by Carson McEntire, his 7th of the season, but finished with only four hits. The Wildcats had only three at-bats with a runner in scoring position against Kansas State lefty Lincoln Sheffield, who struck out 10 and threw a complete game.“Their guy tonight did a wonderful job, he didn’t walk anybody,” Hale said.

“He changed speeds, kept the ball down, we swung at a lot of bad pitched in the dirt, but he did a great job.”Bailey’s first nine outs were all via strikeout, including seven in a row after allowing two baserunners with two outs in the top of the 1st. He got ahead on 15 of 21 batters, including 0-2 seven times, and only fell behind 2-0 twice, finishing with 22 swings and misses.“We had a talk with our pitching coach and our catcher, and it was just to have fun,” Bailey said. “Go back to kind of pitching.

We went back to some old school (hand) signs and stuff like that. So just kind of going back to what I had just been doing my whole life.”Bailey said he also benefitted from charting Owen Kramkowski, who allowed a run over 7-plus innings on Friday.“I think I kind of took a lot of stuff from him throwing to their guys that I was like, that’ll work for me,” he said.Bailey was at 99 pitches when he exited. Next week’s series against BYU starts a day early, meaning Bailey’s next start will be one fewer day of rest, which may have contributed to the decision not to send him out for the 7th.

So could what happened Friday, when Kramkowski came out for the 8th but then gave up back-to-back singles and was pulled up 1-0 in a game the Wildcats would lose 2-1.“We put him back out there, all of a sudden something goes weird,” Hale said. “He’s at 110 (pitches), I got to take him out of the middle of an inning and put a reliever in there, that’s tough.”During a 3-1 road trip last weekend, including an 11-inning win at ASU, Arizona’s relievers had allowed only three runs in 17.1 innings of work. That included 8.2 innings of one-run relief by the trio of Patrick Morris, Corey Kling and Benton Hickman, who in succession allowed a combined 11 runs in the 7th and 8th.Morris gave up a 3-run home run to pinch hitter Nick English with two outs in the 7th to put Kansas State (25-14, 9-8) up 3-1, then after Kling finished that inning he began the 8th by allowing three straight hits.

Hickman came on with a runner on 3rd and three runs already in and gave up five more, including a grand slam to Dee Kennedy that put the 10-run mercy rule into effect.“It just was one of those nights they all came in and they just didn’t have their best stuff,” Hale said.Arizona will try to avoid being swept at home in Big 12 play for the first time at 12 p.m. PT Sunday. Lefty Luc Fladda (2-1, 5.17) will be on the mound for the Wildcats.