San Diego Upsets #2 Oregon St.

Final Score: San Diego 7 Oregon St. 4

San Diego took advantage of a multitude of Oregon St. mistakes, coming from behind twice, and eventually pulling away for a 7-4 win over the second ranked Beavers.

The absence of shortstop Tyler Smith, who wasn't even brought along on the trip, really reared its ugly head, as Oregon St. committed 5 errors, which led to 5 unearned runs by San Diego.

Smith, who was struck on the hand by a pitch in the first game against San Francisco, played the next day, and started all 3 games at Arizona, but has been sat down for the Arizona St. and San Diego series. The disruption to the defense was devastating tonight. The Beavers hadn't had more than 2 errors in any game all season, and should actually have been charged with a 6th one that led to the last San Diego run.

And there were other errors as well, beginning with the decision by coach Pat Casey to start Dan Child against the San Diego Friday night starter.

After a good first inning, Child committed one of the errors in between a pair of walks, the second with the bases loaded. He followed that up by hitting the next batter on the head, to score a second run.

That came after a base running error, where Dylan Davis ran into an unforced out at home in the top of the second.

Oregon St. took a 3-2 lead in the 3rd, on an RBI bunt by Andy Peterson, and RBI single by Michael Conforto (who will play for Team USA again this summer, it was announced today), and a sacrifice fly by Davis that scored Peterson.

Kris Bryant, the nation's leader in home runs, tied the game with his 13th round tripper of the year to lead off the bottom of the 3rd, but Kavin Keyes matched that, with his second career homer, and first of the season, in the fourth inning, putting the Beavers back up 4-3.

That was about the extent of the highlights for the evening for Oregon St., though, as the parade of runs off errors commenced, with San Diego scoring in the 4th, 6th, and 7th.

Louie Lechih tripled twice for San Diego to contribute to the Toreros pulling away, and provide a stark contrast to the decision to sacrifice bunt with 2 out and a runner on 3rd by the Beavers.

San Diego did do Oregon St. an early favor with a base running error of their own, trying to score a second run with the bases loaded, which got Chris Woolley thrown out by Michael Conforto. But overall, it was easily the worst baseball Oregon St. has played all season.

The Beavers also struggled at the plate, with a dozen strikeouts, many of them looking. Multiple strikeouts were with all 3 strikes being taken.

The Beavers burned through 7 pitchers on the evening, with Taylor Starr taking the loss, his first decision of the year. Oregon St. slipped to 21-3.

Max MacNabb, the first of 3 pitchers to come out of the Torero bullpen, picked up the win, improving him to 2-2 for the season, and Max Homick, who closed out the game, working the 9th inning, picked up his 3rd save of the season. San Diego improved to 17-9 with the win in front of a small crowd of 1,017 fans on hand, many of whom actually stuck out the marathon that took 3:35 to play, as there were 8 substitutions in addition to the 9 pitching changes.

The series will continue tomorrow night at 6, with the Beavers turning to Matt Boyd to try to turn things around.

Andy_Wooldridge@yahoo.com