The last Pac-12 baseball season — the last Pac-12 sports pursuit of a championship — ended on Sunday. It ended in part because of a remarkable collapse the Oregon Ducks will spend all offseason trying to forget. One doubts they will succeed in the attempt.
Ducks Wire has more on a remarkable turn of events which ushered the Ducks out of the NCAA baseball super regionals, stopping their season short of Omaha and the College World Series. It’s not that they lost a lead to Texas A&M which hurts; it’s how they lost that lead and why their coach didn’t have a relief pitcher ready in the bullpen to stop the implosion:
“Once up 8-4 in the seventh inning in Game 2 of the Bryan-College Station Super Regional against Texas A&M, the Ducks’ pitching absolutely imploded as they saw the Aggies score nine runs on just two hits to take the 13-8 lead and the eventual 15-9 win.
“Brock Moore, who threw two innings beforehand, walked in three runs and forced another in before finally being relieved by Jaxson Jordan. It got worse after that as Jordan walked in a run and allowed a Kaeden Kent grand slam to account for the nine-run frame.”
Nine runs allowed on two hits? That’s hard to believe. As a result, Pac-12 baseball’s dream died on Sunday, as did the conference’s final push for a championship in college sports. There is no more Pac-12 sports to be played. The conference’s 10 fleeing members will now scatter and officially join other conferences, while Washington State and Oregon State will play Mountain West schools in football and West Coast Conference schools in basketball.
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