Oregon St. extended their non-conference winning streak to 6 games with Monday night's 5-0 win at Portland. After taking a 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning, most of the Beavers' offensive production came on Jake Rodriguez's 3 run homer in the second inning. After that, the game was scoreless until Oregon St. scored an insurance run in the top of the 9th inning.
Ryan Gorton was 3 for 4 at the plate, and scored on Rodriguez's homer, and set the table for the insurance run, which was scored by Ryan Dettman, who ran for Gorton after Gorton led off the 9th with his 3rd hit.
Meanwhile, Dan Child worked into the 8th inning, scattering 6 hits while recording 9 strikeouts, before turning the game over to the "Killer Bs" in the Beaver bullpen after a 98 pitch outing. Matt Boyd and Tony Bryant finished off the game, allowing Child to get the win that improved his season record to 4-2, and lowering his team best ERA to 1.93.
The 5 wins prior to the poll being tabulated didn't get Oregon St. back into the BaseballAmerica Top 25 this week, though it is an Oregon team that leads the Pac-12, and the west, in the rankings.
Oregon became the highest ranked Pac-10/12 team for the first time when the Ducks swept a 2 game series against San Francisco, and then took the first 2 games of their Pac-12 weekend series at Stanford. This after having taken the first 2 of 3 at UCLA the weekend before. It elevated Oregon from #16 to #8. And they celebrated by pulling out a 3-2 win over Arkansas Pine Bluff, who were also swept over the weekend by the Beavers.
Oregon's success against Stanford not only propelled them up in the polls, it put them into a tie for first place in the Pac-12 with UCLA and Arizona, all with 10-5 conference marks.
UCLA took 2 of 3 games in Tucson against Arizona, after taking a mid-week win over twelfth ranked Cal-St. Fullerton. The wins elevated the Bruins from #17 up to #11 in the poll, and dropped Arizona from #4 to #13.
Stanford beat Pacific prior to the Oregon series, but their 2-2 week dropped the Cardinal from #6 to #14. Arizona St. moved to 4th in the Pac-12, but just 1 game out of the 3 way tie for first, with a sweep of USC. However, the Sun Devils only moved up from #21 to #20, after splitting a 2 game series with New Mexico last week.
Oregon St.'s 6-6 conference mark leaves then in 5th place, 2 1/2 games behind the league leaders, heading into this weekend's series at Goss Stadium against UCLA.
The top 3 in the poll, Florida St., Texas A&M, and Kentucky, all maintained their positions.
Cal-St. Fullerton remained the highest ranked western team not from the Pac-12, and remained at #12 after bouncing back from the loss to UCLA by taking 2 of 3 from UC-Irvine.
San Diego climbed from #20 to #19 after a win at San Diego St., and a 3 game sweep of LaSalle. New Mexico St. remained at #25, after taking 2 of 3 from Sacramento St., though they did loss a second consecutive game to the Hornets Monday, after the poll was tabulated.
Andy_Wooldridge@yahoo.com