Oregon State Baseball: Beavers Take Down Seattle 8-3

After a tough loss against Arizona State Sunday, the Beavers picked up a solid midweek win over the Seattle Redhawks. After an anemic showing Sunday, the Beaver bats looked solid again on Wednesday, and their pitching depth looked much sharper than it has been earlier this season. Oregon State improves to 15-4 overall.

After no action in the first one and half innings, the Beavers got in gear in the bottom of the second. Travis Bazzana and Gavin Logan led off with a pair of singles, and then a Greg Fuchs single to right field got the Beavers their first inning of the day. A few batters later Wade Meckler was hit by a pitch to load the bases with two outs. Justin Boyd came to the plate, and found a gap in left field that was just enough to score two more runs for Oregon State.

That was all the action for the next four innings. Oregon State starter Jaren Hunter shut down the Seattle side. In his five innings on the mound, Hunter allowed only two hits and no walks, with one strikeout. He would have picked up a win if the Beavers hadn’t run into trouble in the top of the seventh.

That inning the Redhawks grabbed their first run of the game, with a pair of doubles from Matt Boissoneault and Grant Heiser. A single from Jackson Reed moved Heiser up, and then a third double, from Julian Kodama, scored another run for Seattle. Finally, a ground out from Dylan Gerard brought Reed home and tied the game up, 3-3.

The Beavers didn’t waste time getting the lead back. In the bottom of the seventh, Justin Boyd reached base on a single, and then catcher interference sent Jacob Melton to first. Both runners advanced on a wild pitch, and Travis Bazzana was walked to load the bases with two outs. Another walk, to Gavin Logan, gave the Beavers a run and a 4-3 lead.

OSU wasn’t done. After switching pitchers, the Redhawks walked their third Beaver in a row. This time, it was Brady Kasper, giving the Beavers another run and keeping the bases loaded. Finally, Greg Fuchs hit a slow grounder toward the shortstop and just beat the throw for an in field single and another run for Oregon State. It was 6-3 Beavers after the seventh.

Mitch Verburg, who came in as relief in the seventh, shut down the Seattle side in the top of the eighth. In the bottom of the eighth, Seattle’s pitching continued to struggle. After a couple quick outs, Justin Boyd was walked and advanced on a wild pitch. Garret Forrester was then walked, and a second wild pitch advanced both runners. That set up Travis Bazzana for a two run double, giving OSU an 8-3 lead before the inning ended.

DJ Carpenter came in to close out the game for the Beavers. He struck out his first batter faced, but hit the next. Before Seattle could get any sort of comeback going, Carpenter struck out the next two batters to give OSU the win.

This weekend the Beavers will be back on the road. They’ll be travelling to Berkley to take on California, who are currently 10-10 overall and 3-3 in the Pac-12. Game 1 is set for Friday, March 25th, with first pitch scheduled for 6:00 PM PT.