OSU baseball cruises over Texas St. in the series opener: 16 to 4

Oregon St. 16 Texas St. 4 Boxscore

Senior Danny Hayes became the second Beaver of the season to hit a home run, and it came early in the first inning to score three runs. As a team Oregon State scored a season high sixteen runs on sixteen hits (another season high) and threw in a couple errors to make it interesting in the later innings. In the second game in a row the team also put together big scoring innings, this time scoring six runs (4th inning) and five (7th inning) in a game that was never in doubt from Hayes opening shot over the right field fence.

The game also saw the return of senior Ryan Barnes who got his first hit and first RBIs of the season going 2 for 5 with 2 RBIs. Barnes also started at first base and played a solid game in the field including a pretty 3-6-3 double play. All the starting players except for Andy Peterson had hits, but even Peterson was able to get on base twice to steal two bases and score two runs. Leading the way Hayes went 2 for 2 with 4 RBIs, Tyler Smith went 3 for 5 with 3 RBIs, Kavin Keyes was 2 for 4 with 3 RBIs, and National Player of the Week Michael Conforto was 2 for 2 and scored twice.

Starting pitcher Matt Boyd was solid for most of his evening striking out five and only allowing one base on balls. But to their credit Texas State fought back in the mid/later innings to find their bats against Boyd, who allowed six hits and two earned runs. Taylor Starr made his first appearance of the season but the Bobcats continued their hot bats, and forced some sloppy defensive play, and were able to knock Starr out quickly after he gave up another two runs. Tony Bryant came in to shut things down completely with a solid two innings striking out three and did not give up a run, then Zach Reser closed the deal out.

Overall the game was not in doubt after the first inning but the cruising Beavs did go a bit too much into cruise control in the late mid-part of the game giving up four runs on some uncharacteristic sloppy pitching and defensive play, which included a wild pitch, throwing errors, and just some too relaxed play overall. Along with a bizarre series of base running mistakes in third inning for the Beavs that saw a Texas State pick off attempt error leading to two run downs that turned into two Beavers being tagged out at home plate one has to think Coach Casey and his staff will have some things to work on in the Saturday game. But again there was really not much to complain about for the team, and by the seventh inning Casey was able to sit most of his starters and play a bunch of guys who don't get much game time.

The 4th ranked Beavers are now 13 and 0 for the season and ready to go for 14 at 2:05pm Saturday afternoon with freshman Andrew Moore getting the starting call.

Go Beavs!