Baseball recap: Santa Barbara hands Ducks their first defeat of the season

Santa Barbara came up to Eugene and handed the Ducks their first setback of the season 6-2.

Can we call it a do-over and move this series back to Santa Barbara?

The Oregon Ducks baseball team might be wondering just that as the Gauchos came up to PK Park and handed the Ducks their first loss of the young season by the score of 6-2

This series was scheduled to be in Southern California, but that area is experiencing some torrential downpours and there would be no way the two teams could have got the four-game series in. So the Gauchos came up to Eugene for a three-game set.

It was a couple of long balls that hurt the Ducks. Santa Barbara cracked the scoreboard in the third inning on a two-run homer from Zander Darby. It stayed that way until the fifth as Drew Cowley singled home Rikuu Nishida to make it 2-1.

But the big blow came in the seventh as Ivan Brethowr crushed a grand slam down the left field line to make it 6-1 and it put the proverbial nail in Oregon’s coffin.

Around the horn: Oregon sweeps away the Red Storm with 6-0 shutout

The Ducks complete the series sweep of St. John’s and have won five straight.

The Oregon pitching staff didn’t want to be forgotten in the past couple of days with all of the runs that were being scored.

Tommy Brandenberg dominated for five innings and he was supported by Josiah Cromwick’s three-run homer in the second as the Ducks completed the four-game sweep of St. John’s 6-0.

Josh Kasevich added a two-run single in the fifth and Jacob Walsh belted his second homer on the season in the seventh.

Oregon won its fifth straight game, but the schedule will get tougher this coming weekend with UC-Santa Barbara coming to PK Park for a four-game series that includes a doubleheader on Saturday.