Oregon St. at California Sunday Baseball Game Thread

#25 Oregon State (13-5, 2-0) at California (11-6, 0-2) - 12:00 NOON PDT - at Evans Diamond, Berkeley, CA - KEJO 1240 AM & KPOJ 620 AM - Audio Stream on Beaver Nation Online, for a fee

The Beavers and the Bears square off in the final game of the weekend's Pac-12 Conference season opening series in Berkeley, and Oregon St. will be looking to break out the brooms at California's expense.

Saturday's double header, made necessary after rain on Friday, produced a pair of Beaver wins, 9-2 in the opener, and 4-1 in the second game, and more importantly, strong starting pitching performances.

Both Ben Wetzler and Dan Child turned in 8 solid innings, so the Oregon St. bullpen is still at full strength. Ryan Gorton only needed 8 pitches to set California down in order to close out the first game, and Tony Bryant only threw 11 in picking up the save in the second game. Child actually threw 1 pitch in the 9th inning, giving up a double, so Bryan, the Beavers' pre-season All-American closer did all of his quick work with a runner in scoring position behind him.

It was a great birthday present for head coach Pat Casey, who turned 53 Saturday.

Ryan Dunn had his second home run of the season, a solo shot, in the second game, and now has a 12 game hitting streak going.

Tyler Smith went 3 for 8 Saturday, and actually hurt his batting average for the season, and career against Cal. Smith is hitting .431 to lead the Beavers, and is .454 lifetime against the Golden Bears.

Kyle Porter (2-0, 0.00), a sophomore lefty, will start for the Golden Bears. Porter went 4 innings and got the win in California's 4-0 win over Nebraska last Sunday. Porter gave up 1 walk in an otherwise perfect 4 innings. Porter got the Bear's win in Omaha last year.

Jace Frye (0-0, 2.08), a freshman lefty from Beaverton, OR, will go for the Beavers. Frye made his first appearance of the season starting last Saturday against Connecticut, and going 4 1/3 innings, leaving with a 3-2 lead Oregon St. would subsequently lose, and ultimately lose the game 6-3 to the Huskies. Frye allowed 2 runs on only 2 hits, but also 3 walks. Fry will have a target pitch count of 80-85 pitches today.

The Beavers enter the day tied with Utah, who concludes their series at USC today, for the Pac-12 lead.

Arizona is a half game back, after sweeping their double header yesterday in Tucson against Washington St., as the 'Cats won 8-7 and 12-9, concluding that series.

Washington is also a half game back, after wrapping up their series is Seattle with a split with Oregon. The Huskies shut out the Duck 5-0 in the first game, but Oregon avoided a sweep with a 3-2 win in 13 innings.

UCLA has a double header with Arizona St., after their game yesterday was rained out, and Stanford is taking the weekend off to study or finals.

Go Beavers!