It was a long day of baseball for the team, and even made longer with a hugely disappointing double header performance on both sides of the plate. The Beavs could not get any offense going in the first game and Matt Boyd was smacked around for nine hits and four runs, leading to his second loss of the season. Washington's pitchers gave up eight hits but the Beavs could not produce any runs until the final at bat with a Ryan Barnes sac-fly. Both teams did not have any extra base hits in the first game, and OSU also showed an additional lack of spark on defense allowing two sloppy errors and a pass-ball, all of which translated into a 5 to 1 loss.
After a short rain delay the Beavs looked to finally find their spark. It took a little while but the Beavs had control of the second game behind a decent outing by Andrew Moore. Moore was able to go a solid six innings allowing only two runs on seven hits. OSU then was able to take command in the fifth inning with a bases loaded clearing triple by Kavin Keyes allowing the Beavs to take a 3 to 1 lead.
Then a strange exchange in the seventh inning occurred where the Beavs had runners on second and third with no outs. First Michael Conforto is thrown out at home on a pop fly, and then Kayes' line out ended the inning without a run coming across for OSU. The Huskies then countered with a sac-fly run that ended up as also an inning ending double play when the runner tagging from first is thrown out, but UW closed the score gap to 3 to 2.
After this exchange the wheels came off for OSU in the eighth inning with the Beavs giving up eight runs on seven hits due to some poor relief pitching (which saw five different pitchers and also included a wild pitch, hit batter, and a bases loaded walk; the defense did their part also with two errors). Most disturbing it was an inning that saw something that was not at all expected and a Beavs team phoning it in.
It was a hugely disappointing day that had the Beavs in control of first place in the Pac-12, but with some extremely poor play the team ended up giving back games to their pursuers. What was most disappointing were the ways in which both the offense and defense beat themselves with poor play and a lack of spark. Series losses are to be expected in conference play, but nevertheless the Beavs need to dig very deep and bounce back tomorrow to keep things at least semi-honest in the conference race.
Go Beavs!