Recap: Oregon State Baseball Survives Against Hartford

Well, that was certainly thrilling. The Beavers hung on for a win in their home opener against the Hartford Hawks by a score of 3-2.

Oregon State got on the board first with an RBI single from Tyler Malone in the DH spot, which came in the bottom of the fourth inning.

The scary part came when Hartford took a 2-1 lead in the top of the sixth. Left fielder Chris Sullivan reached on a fielders choice, giving just enough time for the centerfielder John Thrasher to score from third. Then shortstop Zach Ardito came up with an RBI double that scored the third baseman T.J. Ward in that same frame.

One inning later, Adley Rutschman doubled off the left-field wall and scored Jack Anderson and Steven Kwan.

Preston Jones almost added to the lead in the eighth, but he got thrown out at home. The day would end with a final score of 3-2, in favor of Oregon State.

Luke Heimlich pitched 7.2 innings with six strikeouts, allowing six hits and two earned runs with three walks. Christian Chamberlain made a brief appearance in relief, facing just one batter who he walked. Dylan Pearce then came on in the eighth to finish the game out and earned his first save of the year. The win went to Heimlich and he moves to 3-0 on the year.

The clutchness of the fielding in the later innings helped the Beavs seal the deal on a day where they committed no errors. All things considered, this should have been a much bigger margin of victory for OSU, but they left ten runners on base on a day where they were outhit 7-5 by Hartford.

The magic got cut a little short on Trevor Larnach’s big start to the year as he went 0-4 at the plate today. But Rutschman, Kwan, and Malone picked up enough of the .slack

With the loss, the Hawks drop to 1-4 on the season. The Beavers improve to 9-0. Both teams continue the series tomorrow (Saturday) at 1:05 PM PT. Check back here for the game thread (which I could have sworn I published earlier -_-) and recap.