Recap: Oregon State Baseball Defeats Ohio State, 10-8

Oregon State took on Ohio State in Surprise, AZ Friday afternoon. The Buckeyes handed the Beavs their only non-conference loss last season and I don’t know about you, but I was still kind of bitter about it.

Sam Tweedt and Ryan Feltner took the mound and Tweedt struggled a bit again (4 innings and 5 earned runs). The Beavers struck early on Zak Taylor’s double that drove in two-runs in the 2nd inning. Ohio State quickly responded with a four-run inning in the 3rd capped off by Conner Pohl’s three-run homer.

How did the Beavers respond facing their first real adversity of the season? They leaned on Nick Madrigal, Trevor Larnarch and Adley Rutchsman; who started a mini two-out rally with nobody on, to tie the game. Ohio State would not go away though. They added another run on a sacrifice-fly in the bottom of the 4th. Taking the lead back 5-4.

Ohio State added another run in the top of the 5th and the Oregon State bats went surprisingly cold after the 3rd inning. Starting Pitcher, Sam Tweedt, was removed after the 4th inning and the freshman, Kevin Abel took the mound.

Kevin Abel is my new favorite player by the way. The freshman, in just his second outing went 4.1 innings, 71 pitches and was very very good (minus giving up that homer in the 9th). He managed to strike out TEN BATTERS over his 4.1 innings of work. I’m no mathematician, but over 75% of his outs came from strikeouts. My hunch is that Abel will become a starting pitcher sometime soon (this season hopefully).

The Beavers headed to the bottom of the 8th inning down, 6-4 and I was getting (super) anxious. Oregon State decided to turn the offense on and loaded the bases with no outs. Adley Rutchsman’s sacrifice fly brought in Cadyn Grenier to chip into Ohio State’s lead. Madrigal was tagged out at home in a fielders choice for the second out though. With two outs in the eighth the Beavers brought in NOT 1.... NOT 2... NOT 3... But FIVE clutch runs to give themselves a comfortable 10-6 lead. Steven Kwan capped off the scoring with a two-run triple.

With a four-run lead Abel came in to close it out. Unfortunately, he gave up a two-run homer and Jake Mulholland replaced him. Jake downed the next two batters to earn the save and gave the Beavers a 10-8 victory over Ohio State.

Oregon State improved to 6-0 on the season; while Ohio State dropped to 4-2. The rematch is scheduled for Sunday. The Beavs got revenge for last seasons only non-conference loss and got pre-revenge for the football team.

Oregon State will face face Nebraska (again) tomorrow at 3pm. Check back around that time for the gamethread at that time and subsequent recap.