Oregon St. at San Diego Game Thread

#21 Oregon State (4-2) vs. San Diego (3-2) - 1 PM PST at Cunningham Stadium, San Diego University / KEJO 1240 AM and KPOJ 620 AM (Not streamed)

Oregon St. is back across town this afternoon at Cunningham Stadium on the University of San Diego campus for the third game of their weekend. And the Beavers hope to recapture some of positives today's surroundings provided when they beat Pacific 10-7 on Thursday afternoon. They certainly hope to purge all memories of last night's disastrous 18-2 debacle of a loss at San Diego St., easily one of the Beavers' worst outings in a very long time.

Final Score - Box Score

OSU 2

SD St. 18

San Diego likes the comfy surroundings of their home field even more though. After losing 2 of 3 at Sam Houston St. on opening weekend, the Toreros terrorized both Kansas St. and Pacific yesterday, taking a 15-1 win against the Wildcats, and following it up with a 6-1 win over the Tigers.

It was a 3-1 game against Kansas St. going to the bottom of the 7th inning, but the Toreros then exploded for 5 runs, and turned the game into a romp with 7 more in the 8th. Kris Bryant had 3 hits and 4 RBIs, and scored 3 runs for San Diego. The Toreros pounded Wildcat pitching for 16 hits, and left only 4 runners on base.

Pacific took a 1-0 lead in the top of the 2nd in the 2nd game at Cunningham Stadium, but San Diego answered, with a pair of runs in their at bat. Once again, the Toreros pulled away late, with 1 run in the 7th, and 3 in the 8th. Tiger pitching gave up 15 hits, including at least one to every hitter in the San Diego starting lineup.

San Diego St. jumped all over Oregon St. starter Cole Bayliss for 4 runs in the first inning, and never let up, avenging the 22-3 pasting the Beavers put on them the last time they met in 2008.

Bayliss gave up a single run in the 4th inning, and then 3 more in the 5th to go down 8-1. Bayliss got the loss, but the ugliness was just beginning. Dylan Davis got the Beavers out of the 5th inning, but allowed another run in the 6th, and 2 more in the 7th., after Oregon St had edged within 8-2.

Zach Reser and even Ryan Dunn, who had entered the game in the top of the 6th as a pinch hitter, and stayed on to play short stop, took turns on the mound, before Matt Fielding finally got Oregon St. out of the inning. By that time the Toreros had tacked on 7 more runs.

Fielding gave up 2 more in the bottom of the 8th, and eventually the game ended. The game officially came in under 4 hours, but with the addition of the plate meeting and the television lead-in on The Mtn., the Beavers managed to get their full 4 hours of embarrassment onto television.

Oregon St. managed just 7 hits, but drew a dozen walks. And still scored only 2 runs. The reasons were a continual inability to get clutch hits when opportunity presented itself. The Beavers left 17 runners on base. That makes the total 65 in the first 6 games!!

Three times, they left the bases loaded. Oregon St. batters struck out 11 times. There were swinging strikes at a ball a foot above the strike zone (and above the bill of the batters' helmet), and one that the San Diego St. pitcher bounced up to the plate.

There was a dropped third strike where the batter didn't even start to step toward first base. Consecutive called strikes for the third out with runners in scoring position. The fundamental errors well more than obscured what few bright batting spots that there were.

Michael Conforto did have 2 hits, and drove in one of Oregon St.'s runs. Both Max Gorton and Ryan Gorton returned after their NCAA mandated 5 game suspensions, and Gordon also had 2 hits, while Gorton had a hit and the other RBI.

But mostly it was an almost unending evening of missed opportunities.

Meanwhile, San Diego St. was chewing up Oregon St. pitching, which gave up 17 hits, but put 12 additional runners on base, the product of 8 walks, 3 batters hit by pitches, and a passed ball on a strikeout. The #9 hitter in the Aztecs batting order reached base the first 5 times he came to the plate.

Michael Cederoth threw 3 solid innings in relief of starting pitcher Travis Pitcher, who went 4 innings. Cederoth picked up the win.

Jake Romanski arguably led the San Diego St. onslaught, with 4 RBIs and 2 runs scored, but 9 different Aztecs had multiple RBIs, runs scored, or hits.

Head coach Pat Casey had no comments to share after the game, and that's probably just as well; they most likely would have had to be redacted anyway.

Today will tell whether last night's exercise in futility, in which Oregon St. played 20 players, was an isolated incident, one to forget about and unsuccessfully pretend never happened (there's that darned tv video), similar to the Pac-12 season opening disaster last year at Arizona, or an exposure of not only Oregon St.'s expected inexperienced starting pitching, but also the Beavers' troubling tendency to terribly under capitalize on opportunities at the plate, which was showing up even in last weekend's productive offensive outings.

Neither team was willing to name a starter for today's game as of late morning.

Eventually, San Diego settled on Dylan Covey, a RHP sophomore who made 7 starts and had 9 appearances last year, and started last Sunday in the Torero's 10-3 loss to Sam Houston. Covey went 5 innings, giving up single runs in the 3rd and 4th innings, and got the loss. Covey (0-1, 1.8 ERA), gave up 3 hits and 4 walks, and only 1 of the runs was earned.

Oregon St. will counter with Dan Child (0-0, 1.5 ERA), who started the second game last Saturday against UCSB, the one that went 12 innings, and went into Sunday morning, before the Gauchos won 13-12, after being suspended when it got dark.

Child went 6 innings, and gave up 8 runs on 9 hits, leaving with the Beavers down 8-3, after surrendering 3 runs in the 2nd inning, and 5 in the 4th.

Oregon St. has won 4 of 7 meetings all time with San Diego, but has lost the last 2 games, including a 4-1 loss at Goss on May 10, 2010. San Diego, ranked #19 at the time, pinned the defeat on the Beavers' Kraig Sitton. James Nygren, current Beavers Matt Boyd, and Gorton, and Tyler Waldron all saw relief action in that mid-week mishap.

Here's the place to assess how well the Beavers bounce back, and what the season may hold.

Andy_Wooldridge@yahoo.com