Ducks Can’t Hang With Beavers: Lose Game, Series

Oregon gave up runs in bunches early and late and scored just 2 runs for the third straight game as Oregon State beat the Ducks 12 - 2 in a disappointing finish to the rivalry baseball series this afternoon. A week after a tremendous offensive performance against Arizona, Oregon could generate only 3 hits on Sunday and was able to score only single runs in the 8th and 9th innings. The game featured a lengthy weather delay early on.

Freshman Leo Uelman started on the mound for Oregon but had a rocky start from which the Ducks could never recover. Uelman gave up 5 runs on 3 walks and just 2 hits - one of which was a grand slam - in the top of the first inning. His relief, Turner Spoljaric, did only marginally better against the Beaver bats, allowing 2 more runs on 4 hits in two innings of work.

The Ducks did settle in as Matt Dallas, Austin Anderson, Jacob Hughes and Ian Umlandt pitched 5 innings between them, ceding up just one more run over that stretch and giving Oregon’s bats a chance to warm up. Unfortunately, Oregon State scored 5 runs over the 8th and 9th, steepening the hill the Ducks had to climb and the Oregon bats had no answers.

Morgan L. Blackwell

Oregon’s run in the 8th came on a wild pitch, and in the 9th, Jacob Walsh’s two-out double down the left-field line scored Tanner Smith from 2nd. Smith had preceded Walsh with a double of his own.

It was a disappointing and somewhat surprising turn-around in Oregon’s baseball fortunes. The team had won 11 straight before the Saturday loss to the Beavers and had shown tremendous resiliency in last weekend’s series in Tucson. Oregon State’s pitching staff - while talented - had certainly not shown it could shut down opponents of Oregon’s offensive explosiveness for an entire series as it did the Ducks. The 6 total runs over the 3 games for Oregon were fewer than they’d scored in all but one individual game since mid-March.

Oregon (20-9 overall, 7-5 Pac-12) now has to postpone its bid to move into the top tier of the Conference. The Ducks have a busy week ahead, playing home games Tuesday and Wednesday against San Francisco and returning to Pac-12 play next weekend as the Conference-leading Stanford Cardinal come to Eugene.