Tag: Jace Stoffal

Baseball recap: Ducks drop crucial road series to Trojans

Oregon’s hopes of hosting an NCAA regional took a hit this weekend with a series loss at USC.

The Oregon Ducks baseball team knew they would have a tough road ahead with the absence of ace pitcher Jace Stoffal. USC took advantage and defeated Oregon two games to one down in Los Angeles.

Minus Stoffal, the Ducks’ pitching staff took a beating, giving up a total of 23 runs in the three games. In the one game Oregon was able to win, it had to rally late Saturday night to avoid a possible sweep.

Oregon is now 31-16 overall and 14-10 in conference play, while USC improved to 27-20-1 overall and 13-11 in Pac-12 action.

With just two series remaining in the regular season and the conference tournament around the corner, the Ducks still have hope of hosting an NCAA regional, but they’ll have to play a lot better than they did in LA.

The Ducks welcome in Washington next weekend before closing out the regular season at Utah.

Oregon’s series success at USC might boil down to a battle of the bullpens

With a big Pac-12 series looming in Los Angeles for Oregon and USC, success could be determined by which bullpen comes to play.

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.”

[lawrence-auto-related count=3]

Baseball recap: Stoffal throws a gem as Ducks defeat Stanford

Oregon starter Jace Stofal throws a three-hit complete game shutout as the Ducks defeat No. 7 Stanford 4-0 at PK Park.

The Pac-12 might need to rename the Pitcher of the Week Award to the Jace Stoffal Award.

For the second week in a row, Oregon’s Friday night starter absolutely stifled a Pac-12 team, this time being Stanford, as the Ducks defeated the No. 7 Cardinal 4-0 at PK Park.

With the win, the Ducks moved to 23-9 on the season and 8-5 in the conference, while Stanford dropped to 22-10 and 10-3 in Pac-12 action.

Stoffal needed 118 pitches in the complete-game shutout win as he struck out eight Cardinal hitters and just three hits. It was just the second time this season Stanford didn’t plate a run.

On the other side of the plate, Oregon smacked three home runs to account for all of its runs. Colby Shade hit a solo shot in the third to put the Ducks on the board and later in that inning, Jacob Walsh hit a two-run homer for the 3-0 lead.

Drew Cowley added a solo homer of his own in the sixth, which was a bomb to dead center field to make it 4-0. But with how Stoffal was pitching, the Ducks didn’t need the insurance run.

Oregon did see the record books change as Tanner Smith’s double in the sixth inning was his 59th career two-bagger and he now holds the program record.

These two teams will get at it tomorrow at 2 pm as Logan Mercado (2-0, 6.75 ERA) goes up against Stanford’s Matt Scott (5-0, 2.08 ERA).

Ducks sweep Arizona to end the regular season in style

Oregon baseball ends the regular season in style with a 5-3 win over Arizona to complete the three-game sweep.

At the beginning of the week, the thought of Oregon hosting an NCAA regional was a long shot at best.

Now with a good showing in the Pac-12 tournament next week, the Ducks have a really good shot at hosting.

Oregon ended the regular season with a 5-3 win over No. 25 Arizona and completed the weekend series sweep over the Wildcats. This is the same Wildcat team that defeated No. 2 Oregon Series two games to one last week.

With the win, the Ducks are 35-21 overall and finished the conference season with an 18-12 mark. They will be the 4-seed in the Pac-12 tourney in Scottsdale, Ariz., and will open the festivities on Wednesday with a 9 a.m. start against Arizona of all teams.

Isaac Ayon set the tone Friday night with a complete-game win and that momentum certainly must have inspired Game 3 starter Jace Stoffal. The sophomore from Roseburg had never pitched more than four innings in a game, but he was able to pitch into the eighth inning.

Stoffal gave up just one run on three hits and struck out three to earn his first win of the season.

The Ducks scored three runs in the second inning thanks to Bennett Thompson’s run-scoring single and Tanner Smith’s two-run double to right-center. They made it 4-0 in the sixth on Jacob Walsh’s single to center. That was all Stoffal and the Ducks needed, but Arizona made it interesting late in the game.

They scored one run in the eighth and two more in the ninth off of Kolby Somers. But the Oregon closer struck out Blake Paugh to end the game.

Now Oregon will take the show down to Scottsdale where if they win a few games or make the final, this win over Arizona won’t be the last game at PK Park in the 2022 season.

Oregon baseball makes history down in the desert

For the first time since coming back in 2009, Oregon baseball went down to Tempe and took a weekend series from ASU.

This is the 13th season since Oregon brought back its baseball program and there are still milestones to be made.

For the first time since the resurrection of the sport, the Ducks went down and took a weekend series at Arizona State. Oregon clinched the series with a 15-5 pounding of the Sun Devils in 100-plus degree heat.

But it’s a dry heat.

The temperature wasn’t the only thing that was hot as the Duck bats were scorching as Oregon scored 15 runs on 18 hits. With the win, the Ducks improved to 31-21 overall and 15-12 overall. They have one none-conference game with Gonzaga before hosting Arizona to end the regular season.

Drew Cowley led the way going 3-for-6 with four RBIs and three runs scored. Colby Shade drove in three runs and Anthony Hall smacked two doubles. Jacob Walsh broke out of his slump with a monster home run.

ASU actually led 1-0 after an inning, but the Ducks broke loose with four runs in the third and five more in the fourth. Oregon was helped out a bit by some shoddy fielding from the Sun Devils.

The highlight of the inning was when Brennan Milone hit a double down the right field line and the throw coming back into the infield got away and Milone advanced to third. But then that throw to third also escaped the third baseman and Milone scored on the “Little League home run.”

Starting pitcher Jace Stoffal pitched well, but he was unable to get through the fifth and didn’t qualify for the win. He went 4 2/3 innings and gave up three runs on seven hit. Logan Mercado was credited with the win, his sixth on the season. He went 2 1/3 innings in relief, giving up two runs on five hits.

Now the Ducks will come back home to face Gonzaga, a team they beat 9-5 in Spokane earlier this year. The game is scheduled for 6 p.m. at PK Park on Tuesday.