Due to poor forecasted weather for Wednesday at PK Park in Eugene, Ore., the Oregon baseball team’s Wednesday game was rescheduled to Tuesday, turning into a doubleheader against Seattle University. In the first of the two games Oregon never took complete control over the Redhawks until the Ducks broke out in the seventh inning, leading them to a 10-2 victory.
The Redhawks scored first in the top of the first inning when Oregon starting pitcher Jeff Gold (2-0, 2.45 ERA) walked the leadoff man Chase Fields. Fields later scored on a Brian Olson single up the middle.
“I’m just upset that I was up 0-2 on the leadoff hitter and walked him,” Gold said. “That was stupid.”
In the inning Gold would allow one run, one hit, one walk and one hit batsman. But Gold would settle down in the second, retiring 15 straight batters from the second inning to the sixth, when Michael McCann reached on a base hit in the sixth.
“It took me a little while to settle in, but once I did, Shaun caught a great game, coach called a great game and the guys behind me made plays,” Gold said.
Oregon got that run back in the bottom half of the first when Tyler Baumgartner singled in Aaron Payne from third base. Payne reached first via a walk, then stole second and was bunted over to third by Austin Grebeck.
In the bottom of the third, Oregon picked up two more runs to take their first lead of the game. It was started with a leadoff double from Grebeck, which was followed by an RBI single from Baumgartner. Then, Redhawks pitcher Connor Moore would be called for a balk with Mitchell Tolman on second and Baumgartner on third scoring the Ducks second run of the inning.
Jeff Gold would pitch five dominating innings in this game following his poor first inning. He would leave the game in the seventh when Trent Paddon came in in relief. Gold went 6.0 innings giving up just two hits, one run (earned), one walk, and striking out six.
In the bottom of seventh, the Oregon offense broke the game open batting through the order, scoring six runs on five hits. Baumgartner led off the inning and would eventually end the inning as well.
To begin the seventh, Baumgartner hit a triple off the wall and would be singled in by designated hitter Kyle Garlick. With Tolman and Garlick already on base, A.J. Balta reached first on a walk to load the bases. J.B. Bryant then pinch-hit for Meredith Craig and in his at-bat he would be hit by a pitch to score Tolman from third. The Ducks gave Steven Packard a chance off the bench pinch-hitting for Shaun Chase, and he proved to get the job done. Packard singled to right field to score Garlick. A.J. Balta was given a free walk to home with another Seattle University balk from relief pitcher and former third baseman Brock Carpenter. Now with one out, Aaron Payne singled to right field to score Bryant’s pinch-runner Nick Catalano, but Packard was thrown out at home trying to score from second. With Austin Grebeck at the plate the Ducks would score their final run of the inning. Grebeck doubled to deep left field scoring Payne from first.
“It’s always nice when we score more than one or two runs in an inning,” starting pitcher Jeff Gold said. “We’re never going to complain when runs are scored.”
Oregon played a clean game defensively, not committing a single error.
“When we’re at our best we’re hard to beat defensively,” Gold said. “That’s something we pride ourselves on in this program.”
Jeff Gold picked up his third win of the season and Connor Moore suffered the loss.
The second game of the doubleheader is scheduled for 6:10 p.m. at PK Park.
Follow Andrew Bantly on Twitter @abant3