Beaver Baseball: Bittersweet Series Win
Beaver Baseball: Bittersweet Series Win
Series Recap
Thursday & Friday - The Beavers did everything they needed to do in the first two games, blowing out the Wildcats to the tune of 25-3 over Friday and Saturday to secure the series. You can read write ups of Thursday’s game here, and Friday’s game here. Those results set up the series finale as a winner-take-all matchup for the Pac-12 regular season title.
Saturday - That matchup lived up to the billing on Saturday. Arizona struck first against Eric Segura and the Beavs with some vintage run-manufacturing, moving 2B Garen Caulfield home with two groundouts to first base after his leadoff double. The Beavers bounced back the next half inning, courtesy of none other than Travis Bazzana hitting an RBI double to left field to drive in Jacob Kreig, then scoring himself on an error by CF Casey Hintz on the next play. Segura kept the Wildcats at bay after that, retiring 9 of the next 12 batters, 5 via strikeout. Nelson Keljo took over in the 6th and gave up back-to-back singles to start his outing. He settled down after that, but the tying run was driven in courtesy of a Caufield sac fly to tie the game at 2. Bridger Holmes was brought in to put out a fire with 2 outs in the 7th after Keljo allowed the first two runners on and induced a double play to keep the game tied. He navigated a somewhat adventurous 8th inning with 2 strikeouts to pair with a single and hit batter to bring on some heroics in the 9th. Jabin Trosky came to the plate with runners on 2nd and 3rd and two outs and delivered in the highest stakes moment of his career with a single to right to give the Beavers the lead.
Bazzana had a shot to extend the lead with runners on 2nd and 3rd but flew out to right. That opportunity would come back to bite the Beavs in the bottom half of the inning. After snuffing out rallies in the prior two innings, Holmes ran out of steam and put two runners on in between a strikeout and was lifted for Joey Mundt. The move did not pay off, as Brendan Summerhill drove a ball over Brady Kasper’s head to the wall and gave the Wildcats a walk off win and the Pac-12 regular season title.
What We Learned
The game on Saturday was a bitter pill to swallow after Oregon State came so close to the regular season title but wins in the first two games of the series likely solidified the Beavers as a regional, regardless of the outcome of this week’s Pac-12 Tournament. A deep run in Scottsdale this week still gives OSU a chance at a national seed and a home Super Regional should they advance that far, which is as much as you can ask for headed into the tournament.
We will have more to say on the games upcoming this week, which start Tuesday. The Beavers will get an extra rest day courtesy of their #2 seed and will face off against Stanford at 10:00 AM PT on Wednesday. There is hope that Trent Caraway will make his return for that game, as well as Dallas Macias, who missed the last two games of the Arizona series with an illness.
Batting Line of the Week
Travis Bazzana Batting Line - 16 PA, .500/.563/.857, 0 HR, 2 RBI
Bazzana hit 5 doubles in three games against the Wildcats, set the table as well as any leadoff hitter in the country this week. He is locked in a battle with Georgia’s Charlie Condon for the #1 overall pick in the MLB draft, the results of both will be heavily monitored by the baseball world over the next few weeks.
Non-Bazzana Batting Line: Gavin Turley - 16 PA, .250/.438/.500, 1 HR, 5 RBI
Each game had its own heroes, but Turley’s 4 runs scored in game 2 of the series were as impressive as any. His batting line this weekend encapsulates his game this year, big power, high on base percentage, and lots of strikeouts (5 in his 16 plate appearances). Turley has been a centerpiece of the lineup all year, and when he gets hot behind Bazzana and Micah McDowell in the lineup the Beavs are close to unstoppable on offense.
Pitching Line of the Week
Jacob Kmatz - 1 GS, 6.0 IP, 1 R, 4 H, 8 K, 1 BB
Kmatz needed a bounce-back start and delivered on Friday night. He retired 8 straight to start the game and allowed just two runners to get past 1st base. By the time he was lifted the Beavs had the game comfortably in hand.
Final Pac-12 Power Rankings
Oregon State remains #1 in the power rankings despite losing out on the regular season title by virtue of the series win against Arizona. It was Sweep Central in the rest of the Pac-12, the most notable being USC’s sweep of Utah which likely puts to bed any chances of the Utes gaining an at-large bid to the tournament.
- (NC) Oregon State. Won series @ Arizona 2-1 (28-7)
- (NC) Arizona. Lost series vs. Oregon State 1-2 (7-28)
- (NC) Oregon. Swept Washington State at home 3-0 (27-10)
- (Up 1) California. Swept Washington at home 3-0 (20-11)
- (Down 1) Utah. Swept at USC 3-0 (10-19)
- (NC) Arizona State. Swept Texas Tech at home 2-0 (38-16)
- (Up 1) USC. Swept Utah at home 3-0 (19-10)
- (Down 1) Washington. Swept at California 0-3 (11-20)
- (NC) Washington State. Swept at Oregon 0-3 (10-27)
- (Up 1) UCLA. Swept Stanford at home 3-0 (26-14)
- (Down 1) Stanford. Swept at UCLA 0-3 (14-26)