Beaver Baseball: OSU Starts the Pac-12 Season with a Series Win

Both Oregon State and Utah came out of this series with dramatic come-from-behind victories. The difference was a comfortable Saturday win by OSU to capture the series win. As a result, the Beavers move up the D1 Baseball rankings to #2 in the country behind Arkansas this week as former #2 LSU dropped a series at home to unranked Mississippi State.

The Beavers return to Oregon to face a sneaky-good Portland team in a mid-week game on Tuesday before returning to Corvallis to face a Washington team coming off a series win on the road against #23 Texas.

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Series Recap

Friday - With only three games over the weekend OSU tried a new approach for the Friday start, stacking the lefty Nelson Keljo and righty Jaren Hunter together to create a two-headed starter. They combined for 6.1 IP, 5 R, 11 H, 4 K, 2 BB and since they are Oregon State pitchers they hit two batters for good measure. Utah pieced together those runs via any means possible. A leadoff single resulted in a man on third after a balk and wild pitch by Keljo, and was driven in on a groundout to 2nd base. Another run scored in the 4th after Keljo hit Karson Bodily to start the inning, who then advanced to third on a throwing error by Tanner Smith on a stolen base attempt, then scored on a sac fly. Utah’s Merit Jones outdueled the Keljo-Hunter combination, allowing 2 runs over 6 innings, striking out 9 and working around 5 walks of his own. All of this put the Beavers down 5-2 heading into the 9th inning and facing Utah star closer Micah Ashman. Things spiraled quickly for Ashman, who allowed a double to Smith to lead off the inning, then a home run to Elijah Hainline (his 2nd of the game) to bring the Beavers within one. Back-to-back singles by Micah McDowell and Mason Guerra tied the game, and a walk to Jacob Kreig got Ashman the hook but Jaden Harris wasn't the answer either. He immediately walked Gavin Turley with the bases loaded to give the Beavers the lead, and a Trent Carraway single gave the Beavs a cushion. Bridger Holmes closed out the 9th without issue to secure OSU’s first Pac-12 win of the year.

Saturday - For 7 innings the Beavers and Utes were both in search of any sort of clutch hitting. Oregon State left runners on base in each of the first seven innings, a total of 11 despite having the leadoff runner on in 4 of those innings. Utah left runners on in 5 of the first 7 innings and had a leadoff runner in 5 of those. Both Jacob Kmatz for OSU and Bryson Van Sickle for Utah worked around those runners and completed their scoreless outings of 5 and 4 innings respectively. Utah reliever Colter McAnelly worked 3.1 solid innings and was removed in the 8th after allowing a leadoff walk and getting one out with a fielder's choice. OSU then jumped all over Utah relievers Payton Riske and Bransen Kuehl with a Travis Bazzana bases loaded double started the scoring. All told, the Beavers had 5 base hits and drawing 3 walks while putting 7 runs on the board in the 8th and securing the series win.

Sunday - For three and a half innings it looked like the Beavers would stroll comfortably out of Salt Lake City with a sweep. Bazzana had a double and two home runs in his first three at bats to help build a 9-0 lead through three innings, while Eric Segura retired the first nine hitters in order. That trend did not continue into the 4th. Segura walked the leadoff hitter that inning, followed by a single by Kai Roberts. The freshman then threw the ball away on a pickoff attempt allowing the first run to score, then a parade of singles and doubles followed, interrupted by one pop-up out and a hit batter. By the time Segura was saved from the meltdown the lead was down to 9-6. A freshman having his first bad day on the mound is nothing remarkable, but the complete inability for the bullpen to manage what was still a 3-run lead was what doomed OSU in this one. Oregon State allowed 16 base hits (a season high) and hit four batters (one by Segura, the other three by the bullpen). It was a particularly rough day for AJ Hutcheson (1 IP, 3 R, 2 H, 0 K, 0 BB) and Noah Ferguson (a hit batter and a double without recording an out), two pitchers the Beavers rely on in pressure situations.

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What We Learned

• You have to play the full 9 innings. It took the Beavers a while to get going in the first two games, yet they won both. They came out on fire in game 3 and couldn't hold a 9-run lead. Baseball is a funny game and a series win rarely hurts, but OSU will have to shrug off a frustrating Sunday game as the season continues.
• Oregon State is going to take advantage of bullpen’s, regardless of pedigree. They were held to a total of 2 runs in the first 7 innings on Friday and Saturday on the way to posting a combined 15 runs in those games. They did the same thing to Arkansas earlier in the year after Haden Smith left the game, and the Razorback’s bullpen is no slouch.
• Utah’s is good enough to make noise in the Pac-12 this season. After the first two games, I would have pointed to Utah’s pitching staff and said that was good enough to compete while the offense may struggle. Fourteen runs against a solid Oregon State staff indicates that Utah can play with anyone. The Pac-12 may not be strong at the top outside of the Beavers, but it is balanced, and Utah can very much play their way up from a 3-3 start to conference play.

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Batting Line of the Week

Travis Bazzana Batting Line - 17 PA .500/.529/1.063

The Utes chose to go after Bazzana, whose only walk was in the first plate appearance of the series. The strategy worked on Friday and Utah held him to an 0-for-4 day. It very much did not work over the next two days as Bazzana racked up 8 hits including his 7th and 8th home runs of the season on Sunday. He remains statistically one of the top 5 hitters in the country and is tied for the Pac-12 lead in batting average and home runs.

Non-Travis Bazzana Batting Line: Micah McDowell - 15 PA .417/.353/.750

The only reason McDowell’s season-long batting average of .460 does not lead the Pac-12 is because Bazzana’s is one point higher. The senior was back in centerfield for against the Utes and delivered two multi-hit games along with his 3rd home run of the year. He has been the 2nd best Beaver bat when in the lineup, so it's a bit confusing to see him asked to sacrifice so much (3 times against Utah), particularly when Bazzana is more than capable of stealing bases by himself.

A special shout-out goes to Jabin Trosky who put together a 4-for-5 performance in Sunday’s loss. A glove-first shortstop, the redshirt sophomore is hitting .455/.480/.591 in 26 plate appearances so far this year.

Pitching Line of the Week

Jacob Kmatz - 1 GS, 5.0 IP, 0 R, 3 K, 3 BB

Friday and Sunday were days to forget for much of the Oregon State pitching staff outside of Bridger Holmes (1 IP, 0 R, 2 K, 0 BB) and to a lesser extent Tephen Montgomery (1.2 IP, 0 R, 1 K, 0 BB, one inherited runner scored). Kmatz did not have his best outing of the year on Saturday, but it was enough to keep Utah contained for five innings and give the offense a chance to break through late and secure what ended as a comfortable win.

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Pac-12 Power Rankings

In what has been a season-long trend, the teams at the bottom of the power rankings had more impressive series than most of the ones at the top, in particular Washington who went on the road and took 2-of-3 from #23 Texas. Updated power rankings below with last weekend's series results. The numbers in parentheses is the run differential from the three-game series).

1. (NC) Oregon State. Won series @ Utah 2-1 (26-20)
2. (NC) Oregon. Won series vs Cal 2-1 (16-17)
3. (Up 1) California. Lost series @ Oregon 1-2 (17-16)
4. (Down 1) Stanford. Lost series vs USC 1-2 (17-17)
5. (Up 1) Arizona State. Won series @ Arizona 2-1 (10-16)
6. (Down 1) Arizona. Lost series vs Arizona St 1-2 (16-10)
7. (Up 3) Washington. Won series @ Texas 2-1 (17-10)
8. (Down 1) UCLA. Won series vs WSU 2-1 (18-17)
9. (Down 1) Utah. Lost series vs OSU 1-2 (20-26)
10. (Up 1) USC. Won series @ Stanford 2-1 (17-17)
11. (Down 2) Washington State. Lost series @ UCLA 2-1 (17-18)