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Portland (2-9) vs. #5 Oregon St. (9-3) / Goss Stadium / 5:35 PM PST / No TV / KEJO 1240 AM / KPOJ 620 AM
Oregon St. opens their annual triangular series with Portland today, with the "turf" game at Goss. The Beavers will travel to the Bluff in Portland on April Fools's day, and conclude the series with the Pilots at Vocanoe's Stadium in Keizer on May. 13. The Beavers have won the last 18 meetings with the Pilots.
The Pilots, from the West Coast Conference, got everyone's attention with an opening day 1-0 win at defending National Champion UCLA, and knocked off Big XII defending champion Kansas St., a team Beaver Nation will recall from last year's Corvallis Super Regional, by a 5-2 score on the first day of St. Mary's tournament.
Since then though, things haven't gone too well for Portland. The Pilots were swept by UC-Irvine this past weekend, after being downed 8-2 at Oregon last Tuesday.
Oregon St dropped a spot to #5 in the Baseball America poll this week, after dropping 1 of 4 games this past weekend against Wright St., though they did bounce back strong, with a dominating 13-2 win Sunday in Ben Wetzler's return.
Choosing pitchers for midweek games often depends a lot on what went well, or went wrong, the prior weekend, and how wrung out a team's bullpen is.
The Pilots last played on Saturday, rearranging the weekend schedule against the Anteaters in anticipation of Sunday's stormy weather, so they have had an extra day of rest for their staff.
The Beavers bullpen hasn't been good at closing games, win or lose, and so who starts is really important.
Neither team made up their mind in advance on today's starter though.
Andy_Wooldridge@yahoo.com
