Oregon State Baseball: Taking Care of Business

It was as unlike baseball weather as you can ask for, perfect for an early season matchup of teams from Oregon and North Dakota. The #6 Beavers took care of business against North Dakota State in a series sweep to open the 2024 home season at Goss Stadium. It wasn’t perfect, but the Beaver offense displayed patience and came through when it mattered.

Series Recap

Thursday - 5 runs, 1 hit, no errors, 2 left on base. That was the line from the top half of the first inning on Thursday. Ian Lawson was unable to find the plate in his second career start and walked 4 of the 6 batters he faced. Luckily for the Beavers, NDSU’s Matt Sargeant was equally erratic in the rain and gave up 4 walks of his own in the first inning along with a hit batter and a base hit to allow the Beavers to claw back 4 of those runs in the bottom half of the inning. From there Oregon State teed off, most notably Elijah Hainline. The Washington State transfer has had a slow start to the year but went 3-for-5 with a double and 5 RBIs to lead the Beaver assault on Bison pitching.

Friday - Walks were less of an issue for Beaver pitching on Friday, but a combination of cold, damp weather and an impressive outing by NDSU lefty Nolan Johnson made hits hard to come by. The game was made further surreal by a delay brought on by a light outage, and a subsequent one after home plate umpire Matt McMahon was hit on the hand by a pitch with Travis Bazzana at the plate with two men on and the Beavers down 5-1. Nearly thirty minutes later Bazzana returned to the batter’s box and launched a hanging breaking ball to over the right field fence to bring the Beavers within 1. Two walks and two errors by the Bison later in the inning gave OSU a 6-5 lead they would not relinquish. Micah McDowell left the game with an injury after grounding out in the 4th, which leaves Gavin Turley as the only starting outfielder currently healthy (Brady Kasper has missed the last 6 games with an injury).

Saturday - Jacob Kmatz brought stability to Beaver pitching on Saturday, following up his career high 11 with another 8 against NDSU. He showed fantastic control throughout his outing with no walks and getting 5 of his 8 strikeouts looking. He ran his pitch count to 93, which is a sign that there isn't much of a leash left on him as he finishes his recovery, but also that he will need to find ways of being more efficient if he is to go deeper into games.

Sunday - Beaver hitters picked up another 9 walks in the series finale to pair with 14 hits. Bazzana was the only starter not to register a hit, which he made up for by drawing 4 of those free passes. Coach Canham has raved about the defensive abilities of Jabin Trosky, who got the start at short for the series finale. He cleared loaded bases with a triple in the first inning to put the Beavers ahead 4-0 and added a sac fly in the third.

What We Learned

• Rotation without May - Both Lawson and Jaren Hunter had outings that left something to be desired over the weekend. Some of that can be attributed to non-baseball conditions that made controlling the baseball difficult (Thursday and Friday were night games, while Kmatz and Segura got the benefit of afternoon starts). Regardless of that, the Beavers likely would have gone 1-1 at best in those games against better competition and can't make a habit of going down 5 runs in weekend series. There isn’t much depth left among those originally in the conversation for a starting role. With Adien Jimenez out for the year, only Nelson Keljo (one of two lefties on the staff) and freshman Laif Palmer have not gotten a start so far this year.
• Bullpen Organization - Five OSU relievers had outings of 2 or more innings in the Thursday & Friday games, mitigating the damage from two short starts. AJ Hutcheson (3 IP, 1 R, 3 H, 2 K, 1 BB) and Bridger Holmes (2.1 IP, 0 R, 0 H, 4 K, 1 BB) both turned in appearances that kept NDSU at bay and let the offense get back into the game. Hutcheson became the first OSU pitcher to throw twice on the same weekend, turning in another 2 innings to finish off Sunday’s game.
• Tracking Beaver Bombs - One way to score 19 runs without hitting the ball out of the yard is to take 15 walks, which OSU did on Thursday night. The cold and wet conditions over the weekend were not conducive to long-traveling baseballs to say the least. The Beavers did collect a total of 4 home runs over the series, putting them on a more realistic (but no less impressive) pace of 105 home runs for the regular season.

Batting Line of the Week

Travis Bazzana Batting Line - .417/.611/1.000

Not only did Bazzana put up a line that included a home run, two triples, and six walks, he did it while delivering the most dramatic moment of the weekend with his 7th inning home run on Friday night to pull the Beavers within one. His season OPS of 1.606 is 10th best in the country (4th among players in Power 5 conferences) and the Australian remains comfortably in the mix for the Golden Spikes Award.

Non-Travis Bazzana Batting Line: Elijah Hainline - .417/.611/.583

It has been a slow start for Hainline, who had two hits in the first seven games of the year. A return to the northwest was kind to the Washington State transfer, who went 3-for-4 in the series opener and collected a total of 5 hits over the course of the weekend. His bat was hot enough to earn him a start at DH on Sunday as Coach Canham and team move players around to compensate for the loss of McDowell and Kasper.

Pitching Line of the Week

Jacob Kmatz: 5.2 IP, 0 ER, 0 R, 1 H, 0 BB, 8 K

Kmatz has come out firing in his last two starts and has looked like a front-end starter against Michigan and North Dakota State. His 8 strikeouts would have tied a career high if he had not set a new one with 10 last week. He is still allowing a ton of fly balls (56%), but his HR/FB rate of 7.1 this year is almost half that of last year. Some regression is to be expected there, but if he can keep up the strikeouts there are fewer fly balls to get him in trouble.