The Oregon Ducks baseball team is in contention for a Pac-12 regular season title as they sit in third place and just two games back of Stanford.
Offensively, this team has what it takes to go all the way to Omaha. It’ll come down to a struggling pitching staff that currently has an earned run average of 4.47.
USC is in the same boat. According to Trojans Wire editor Matt Zemek, the Trojans bullpen has let them down so far this season.
That bullpen crushed them in the Washington series and also hurt the Trojans against Oregon State. This has become a very shaky last-three-innings team. Guys need to relish late-game moments and trust their talent.
Garrett Clarke leads USC with six saves and a 1.98 ERA, while Kyle Wisch has four saves with a 2.48 ERA. But over than those late-inning relievers, Oregon’s offense could have a field day.
Neither team has announced the starting pitching matchups for the series, but Oregon will most likely go with the same trio as last week with Jace Stoffal, Logan Mercado and Matthew Grabmann. They’ll be facing a Trojan team that is on the NCAA bubble, a place according to Zemek that is almost miraculous considering where they have been in the recent past.
“This is a natural evolutionary process for a team and a program that have not been accustomed to playing for NCAA Tournament berths and enjoying top-tier success,” Zemek said. “It’s impressive that USC is merely in the NCAA tourney conversation. The program is being built back. It is widely agreed upon in Los Angeles that head coach Andy Stankiewicz was a great hire by AD Mike Bohn and will build the Trojans back to a place of prominence. That has been missing over the past 15 years.”
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