Recap: Oregon State Baseball Edges Cal To Open Pac-12 Play

While most of us were busy watching UMBC make history in basketball, there were, in fact, other sports played on Friday evening. One of those sports was baseball and a team playing it was Oregon State. Still with me? Great.

Anyway, Oregon State beat Cal 4-3 on the road to begin the three-game series. Cal outhit Oregon State 11-8, but two errors by Cal were costly on top of early offensive struggles.

The first run of the game came when Steven Kwan got a single off a ground ball, giving Preston Jones enough time to score. That was in the top of the second inning.

In the top of the fourth, Jack Anderson scored on a throwing error after Cal’s third baseman committed an error trying to throw Andy Armstrong out at first. In the next at-bat, Zak Taylor scored from third as Steven Kwan drove him in on an RBI groundout. The Beavs would get one more run in the following at-bat with a Cadyn Grenier single that allowed Andy Armstrong to score.

In the bottom of that fourth inning, Cal would get two back with an RBI from left fielder Jonah Davis and a single by third baseman Sam Wezniak. Cal DH Korey Lee added one more in the bottom of the eighth with a groundout RBI that brought in Andrew Vaughn. That would be the end of the scoring, but some clever pitching and fielding from Oregon State allowed them to hang on for the 4-3 win.

Luke Heimlich got the start in this game going seven innings allowing eight hits and two earned runs with a walk, four strikeouts, and two hit batters. Dylan Pearce then made a brief appearance facing just two batters, both of whom got a hit, and one got a run in. Brandon Eisert pitched the rest of the eighth inning and preserved the Beaver lead with a strikeout, a forceout, and a groundout. Jake Mulholland closed the game out in the ninth, earning his seventh save of the season. The win went to Heimlich who improves 4-0.

One thing to take note of was the latest spectacular performance by Cal first baseman Andrew Vaughn. He was 3-3 at the plate with two runs scored, three hits and a walk. I’d bet money that he’ll continue that trend in the remaining games this weekend.

The win was Oregon State’s 16th of the season, bringing their record to 16-1 in 2018.

Cal’s loss brings them to 12-5. The loss was also their first at home this season

Game 2 of this series begins at 3:05 PM PT on Saturday afternoon. If you need a break from basketball, head on back here for the game thread and recap. We won’t judge you for picking games wrong.