#1 Oregon State Baseball Falls 3-2 To Washington

They say all good things must come to an end. The Beavers learned that the hard way Thursday night in Seattle as they fell to 28-2 on the year and to 12-1 in league play.

The game began on a high note with Nick Madrigal smacking a double to the left field wall on the second pitch of the game. A few batters later, Trevor Larnach drove him in with a double of his own.

The bottom of the sixth was where things started to get hairy. UW tied it up when Willie MacIver doubled to score Jack Meggs. Shortly after, with two runners in scoring position, Nick Madrigal fielded a grounder and committed an uncharacteristic error on a throw towards first base that missed the mark. Both MacIver and Joey Morgan scored on the play.

In the bottom of the eighth, freshman Mitchell Verburg managed to get out of the eighth with the bases loaded to provide a little spark for Oregon State. In the ninth, Madrigal led off with a single then stole second and third. KJ Harrison soon singled to bring him in to make it 3-2. That’s where the magic ended and the Huskies cut OSU’s historic run short.

Most of the game was a quality defensive struggle. UW came into Thursday’s game with the best fielding percentage (and fewest errors) in the Pac-12 and really kept OSU’s offense in check for the most part. UW pitcher Noah Bremer came on in relief in the second inning and continued his impressive year with 9 strikeouts on a career high pitch count of 134. That being said, the Beavers brought some solid defending of their own, including this heads up play by Adley Rutschman preventing a stolen base.

On the mound, OSU’s Heimlich dropped to 5-1 after a six inning, seven strikeout day where he gave up one earned run. Verburg’s relief appearance was another silver lining on the day for the Beavers as the Freshman’s 1.1 inning, two strikeout, one hit performance was characteristic of how stellar their bullpen has been all year.

OSU also outhit UW 11-8 over the course of the night.

The series continues tomorrow at 4 PM PT on Pac-12 Network.