Oregon baseball loses defensive battle to Beavers

Oregon’s pitching certainly had something to be proud of on Tuesday against one of the best teams in the country in Oregon State. Unfortunately, the Ducks offense could produce no better against the Beavers stellar pitching, and Oregon fell to their in-state rivals 2-0.

The Ducks pitching produced 1-2-3 innings and retired 12 straight batters spanning the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth innings, but the Beavers were finally able to take the lead in the seventh inning off of a sacrifice fly. A solo home run in the eighth was enough to produce the final score.

It was the first time in the Mark Wasikowski era that Oregon had been shut out, ending a 115-game streak of scoring at least one run.

Caleb Sloan, who was on the mound for Oregon for three innings, finished with a career-high five strikeouts and Andrew Mosiello, who relieved Sloan in the fifth, pitched two scoreless innings without allowing a base runner.

The Ducks, who had found some recent momentum and moved into the nation’s Top 25, have now lost five of their last seven and appear to be in a bit of a slump since their seven game winning streak last month was halted. This was the second time they have dropped a close defensive game against the Beavers in Eugene.

Oregon next heads to Corvallis for another three games with OSU and needs to steal at least one so that they can have a signature win to put on their NCAA Tournament resume. With a favorable stretch following the trip up Interstate 5 that includes six of nine games at PK Park, it should be an exciting conclusion to the regular season.