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Recap: Oregon State Baseball Overcome Slow Start To Win Arizona Series Opener

Adley Rutschman’s inside-the-park homer was arguably the catalyst for the comeback.

By Joe Londergan
NCAA Baseball: College World Series Championship-Arkansas vs Oregon State Steven Branscombe-USA TODAY Sports

It took longer than most fans would have liked to put it away, but the Oregon State Beavers got the weekend started off on the right foot Thursday night with an 8-4 victory at home against the Arizona Wildcats. The Beavers outhit U of A 10-6 with the Wildcats committing three errors.

After both teams were scoreless in the first two innings, U of A opened it up in the top of the third with a solo home run by Nick Quintana. OSU answered in the next frame with an RBI single from Ryan Ober.

In the top of the fourth, Arizona’s Tony Bullard blasted a three-run homer over the left field wall to go up four to one, putting a look of worry on the faces of most OSU fans.

That feeling turned to joy in the bottom of the fifth when a solid hit by Adley Rutschman and some poor fielding by Arizona yielded an inside the park home run.

That play seemed to give OSU the boost they needed to dominate the rest of the game. Kyler McMahan scored on a fielding error and Matthew Gretler drove in another run in the bottom of the seventh. The eighth inning yielded an RBI triple from Jake Harvey and an absolute bomb of a three-run homer from Ober. That cushion proved too much to overcome for U of A.

Thursday was definitely not Eisert’s best day. Arizona’s offense seemed to have his number early and the Beaverton native never quite recovered. Nine strikeouts isn’t a number to be mad about, however. Those just don’t quite make up for the four earned runs and the five walks.

Dylan Pearce’s relief appearance earned him his first win of the season.

If there’s one thing we know about this team from an offensive standpoint right now, they like to be dramatic. They seem to have a knack for putting themselves into tough situations and then either breaking out in spectacular fashion like they did today or falling short unceremoniously. Given this is a conference series, we’re obviously glad the former happened today.

The series picks up again Friday night at 7 PM PT on the Pac-12 Network.