Oregon baseball takes third straight Pac-12 series against Arizona
For the third straight series to open Pac-12 play, the Oregon baseball team won two out of three against the Arizona Wildcats this weekend at PK Park.
Instead of fighting back from a Friday loss, the Ducks (15-7, 6-3 Pac-12) won their first two games via a pitchers' duel before getting blown out in the final game Sunday looking for a sweep.
The Ducks won their first Friday series-opener since Feb. 24 when they took down the Wildcats, 2-1, behind a dominant day by starting pitcher RJ Gordon. The junior picked up his second win of the season, pitching 6 1/3 innings and allowing just one run on four hits with seven strikeouts. Brock Moore, Bradley Mullan, and Logan Mercado all came out of the bullpen and pitched three scoreless innings to shut it out.
After giving up a run in the fourth, the Ducks took the lead off a Bennett Thompson single that scored Drew Smith and Justin Cassella in the sixth. That would prove to be enough to earn the series-opening victory.
In Game 2 on Saturday, it was Grayson Grinsell's turn at pitching dominance, along with some heroics from Bryce Boettcher. Grinsell pitched 4 2/3 innings, allowing one run on three hits with three strikeouts, while Michael Freund and Mullan came out of the pen and allowed one more run, but no more.
Boettcher, meanwhile, opened the scoring with a home run blast in the second inning and closed the game out with a sacrifice bunt that scored Mason Neville for the walk-off win, 3-2.
In Game 3 on Sunday the wheels fell off the Ducks, looking for the sweep. Oregon got on the board first with a two-run second inning, but gave up 12 runs to the Wildcats in the final three innings to fall 15-4.
Cassella and Smith each finished with two hits and an RBI in the loss, and Anson Aroz hit a home run. Starting pitcher Kevin Seitter took his first loss of the season, pitching 5 1/3 innings with two runs earned on three hits and four walks with eight strikeouts. The normally strong Oregon bullpen gave up 11 earned runs in just under four innings of work on 11 hits.
The Ducks will take a short break from Pac-12 play when they host Seattle U for a four-game series at PK Park starting on Wednesday.
Alec Dietz covers University of Oregon football, volleyball, women’s basketball and baseball for The Register-Guard. You may reach him at adietz@registerguard.com and you can follow him on X @AlecDietz.
This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Oregon baseball wins third straight Pac-12 series vs. Arizona
