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Oregon St. (24-12, 7-7) and Arizona (24-12, 9-8) will settle their series this afternoon, with first pitch from Goss Stadium at 1:05 PM PDT.
It will be the hottest day of the year so far in Corvallis, and the Beavers will hope that heats up their bats, at least when it matters.
After taking Friday night's series opener 3-1 behind a complete game by Andrew Moore, Oregon St. dropped yesterday's contest 3-1, despite out-hitting the 'Cats' best in the Pac-12 hitters 9-4. The problem was the Beavers blew chances to push an on-base runner across the plate in 7 of the 9 innings.
The Beavers' only run came on Logan Ice's first career home run.
The win moved the 'Cats back ahead of the Beavers by 1/2 game in the middle of the Pac-12 standings.
Holding Arizona to 3 runs certainly qualifies for Oregon St.'s recent MO of getting a career best performance of some sort from their pitching, but an RBI double by Scott Kingery and a solo home run by Bobby Dalbec was all the 'Cats needed.
It would seem that the first team to find an offense today would win, but even that didn't work for Oregon St. last Sunday, when the Beavers blew a 6 run lead to lose the game, and the Civil War Series, to Oregon.
Now, Oregon St. is in danger of losing their 4th weekend series in a row, and 5th of 6, and their 4th Pac-12 series of the season.
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Beavers coach Pat Casey continues to experiment with the lineup, with moving Jeff Hendrix up to the 3 spot from the cleanup slot, and dropping KJ Harrison down into the cleanup role, the most notable of several moves.
Oregon St. will start junior RHP Travis Eckert (3-0, 4.01 ERA), who made it only 2 innings, after which it was 3-3, in last Sunday's 10-9 Oregon win, in which the Ducks scored 7 unanswered runs, 6 on a pair of 3 run homers, to come from way behind.
Arizona will counter with Dalbec (2-3, 3.53 ERA), a sophomore who leads the Pac-12 in home runs, made his first career in last Monday's sweep avoiding 7-2 win over Arizona St. in the Territorial Cup, and then delivered a pair of those home runs to secure the victory.
Andy_Wooldridge@yahoo.com