Beavers Scrambling To Avoid Trampling By Mustangs

Soon to no longer be 24th ranked Oregon St. (20-7) will look to avoid being swept by Cal-Poly (9-14) this afternoon at Goss Stadium at 1 PM.

The Mustangs have already claimed the series, backing up their 8-1 win Friday night with a 7-2 victory yesterday afternoon.

Zach Zehner's 8th inning 2 run home run, his second round trip in as many game against the Beavers, broke the game open yesterday

If the Beavers are going to avoid the wrong end of the broom, they will have to get their bats going, as the same problem that has plagued them for several years has arisen again this weekend, where pitching hasn't been all that bad, and the defense has been decent, but their hitting, especially in clutch situations, has been absolutely abysmal.

The result has been the Beavers' first home non-conference series loss since Washington took both games of a 2 game series in 2003. The last time a team took a traditional 3 game weekend series at Goss, against full weekend pitching staffs, was 2002, and interestingly enough, that was another Big West team, UC-RIverside.

So Beaver fans have seen something exceedingly rare 2 Saturdays in a row, but this weekend it was a generational low, quite the contrast from Drew Rasmussen's perfect game last week.

Oregon St. bounced back after losing the first 2 games to avoid a sweep that weekend, but Cal-Poly, who is looking at this weekend as a chance to turn around their season, and still make a run at the post-season, after injuries got them off to a sub-par start.

The 2 weekends, one a sweep, and now another one that could be a sweep as well, in the opposite direction, are a microcosm of the last few seasons, where Oregon St. frequently relies on pitching performances of heroic proportion to carry then despite mediocre run production, a problem that has repeatedly caught up with the Beavers once quality competition is encountered.

To try to address the offensive struggles, Oregon St. head coach Pat Casey has inserted Christian Donahue into the leadoff spot, dropping Jeff Hendrix to the 2 slot in the batting order.

This weekend's game are not being televised, which is a good thing given how badly the Beavers have performed at the plate, but the Oregon St. internet stream will be skipping along.

Oregon St. Game Notes.

Cal-Poly Series Notes.

Live stats.

Live streaming audio.

Oregon St. will go with junior RHP Travis Eckert (2-0, 2.77 ERA) today to try to turn things back around, while Cal-Poly will counter with freshman RHP Andrew Bernstein (3-2, 3.08 ERA).

Andy_Wooldridge@yahoo.com