The Oregon Ducks baseball team can’t say it didn’t have its chances.
Oregon State was able to wiggle out of some situations and ultimately took the season series from the Ducks three games to one with an 11-6 win in Corvallis. With the non-conference loss, Oregon fell to 30-14 overall, while the Beavers improved to 31-13.
When the Ducks look back on this game, they’ll kick themselves as they left seven on base, including the bases loaded in one inning and runners on second and third in the next. Against a team like Oregon State, the Ducks can’t leave runners stranded on the pond.
It went back and forth through the first two innings, but down 5-4, the Beavers exploded for five runs to make in 9-4 and the Ducks couldn’t recover.
Drew Cowley hit a two-run homer to start the scoring off in the first and Colby Shade hit two doubles to lead the Ducks’ offensive attack.
Bryce Boettcher’s two-run single in the third gave Oregon a brief 5-4 lead, but the Duck starting pitcher, Jackson Pace, just couldn’t hold OSU down on the mound. He was charged with nine runs, six earned, and eight hits in just 2.2 innings.
Things started to settle down once the bullpen came in, but by the time they took over, the game was already out of hand. Oregon’s bullpen went 5.1 innings, allowing two runs on four hits.
Unfortunately, the Beaver bullpen was just a little better. The trio of Tyler Mejia, Aiden Jimenez and Ben Ferrer threw six shutout innings against the Pac-12’s best offense.
Now Oregon will try to get back on the winning track Friday when the Ducks go down to Los Angeles and battle USC for a three-game weekend set. The Trojans are 25-17-1 overall and 11-10 in conference action.