The Oregon Ducks are headed to the final of the 2023 Pac-12 Baseball Tournament.
It was a bumpy roller coaster in the first five innings of Friday afternoon’s matchup at Scottsdale Stadium, but the Ducks ultimately stayed strong to outhit Washington in a 12-7 victory. The teams combined for 32 base hits — 20 for Oregon, strangely with not a single walk. Colby Shade and Gavin Grant each had four hits, while Drew Cowley and Sabin Ceballos had three-hit days. Grayson Grinsell was the hero in the bullpen, locking down most of the late innings to keep the Huskies from coming back.
“We just tried to go for it,” head coach Mark Wasikowski said. “I felt like they were gonna throw their best arms today, and Coach [Jason] Kelly does a good job of having those guys throw a lot of strikes. So we weren’t gonna sit around and get behind in the count. We figured this is an offensive place, and you’re gonna be rewarded for being aggressive. That’s just been our mindset from the start.”
The Ducks got off to a much better start than in the first two games of the tournament. Five straight batters reached in the first inning — four via singles, and one on an error.
The rally included one hit from each of Thursday night’s heroes, Shade and Ceballos. An error by the center fielder on Cowley’s single gave him and Shade an extra base, allowing Ceballos to collect a two-run knock.
After Tanner Smith reached on Washington’s second error of the inning, Drew Smith wasted little time extending his hitting streak to 18 games with an RBI single, jolting Oregon out to a 3-0 lead. It tied the Oregon school record for longest hitting streak, previously set by current major leaguer Spencer Steer.
“He’s just a great player,” Wasikowski said. “He comes from a family of coaches. They’ve been hard on him; he can handle tough environments and adversity, and he waited his turn.”
Grant led off the second with his first hit of the tournament, but got thrown out at home on a Rikuu Nishida double. The Ducks put up another three-spot anyway. Cowley came through with a two-out RBI single, and Ceballos followed with his second home run in his last three at-bats, smashing one the opposite way for a two-run shot to blow it open to 6-0.
“After yesterday, my confidence got up again,” Ceballos said. “Just keep after that, and keep doing your thing.”
Freshman Matthew Grabmann got the start on the hill for Oregon. For the first 2 2/3 innings, he displayed much sharper command than normal. He struck out four and didn’t issue a walk, allowing just a two-out single in the second.
But that command faded and fell apart in a hurry with two outs in the third. Grabmann issued his first walk, then allowed an infield single. The dangerous Coby Morales came up, and he smashed a no-doubt three-run homer to cut Oregon’s seemingly comfortable lead in half.
The next two batters singled and walked, which brought an end to Grabmann’s day. It was the second game this year where things have spiraled for Grabmann with two outs.
“That’s something that I think Matthew’s gonna need to really look inside of himself and determine,” Wasikowski said. “Because when you got nobody on and two outs and they still get a five on ya, that’s not okay. And he needs to probably look at himself and get to the bottom of some of that, because that’s not the first time that’s happened to him.”
The Huskies kept rolling, hitting back-to-back RBI singles off Ian Umlandt. Seven straight batters reached, all with two outs, to cut Oregon’s lead from 6-0 to 6-5.
With the go-ahead runs in scoring position, Umlandt finally recorded the last out with a ground ball to Jacob Walsh. It was a massive out from Umlandt, despite the brutal inning for Oregon.
Umlandt retired the first two in the fourth, but once again, the third out was a grind. Will Simpson and Morales both put up good battles against Umlandt and hit back-to-back singles. With the right-handed AJ Guerrero up, Oregon brought in right-hander Dylan McShane. The 6-foot-9 freshman recorded another huge third out, getting Guerrero to hit a sky-high popup to Ceballos. The Ducks stranded the tying run on third for the second straight inning.
T. Smith, after reaching on an error in each of his first two at-bats, led off the fifth with an infield single to try to sway the momentum back in Oregon’s favor. The scalding hot D. Smith followed by smacking an RBI triple to left-center, and he scored on Bennett Thompson’s sacrifice fly.
Then it was the Ducks’ turn to attack with two outs. Grant, Nishida and Shade all singled, driving in another run. Cowley followed with Oregon’s fourth straight hit, joining Grant in collecting his third hit of the game.
“A ‘take what the pitchers are giving you’ type thing,” Cowley said. “If they’re throwing strikes, you know you’re gonna jump on them.”
The Huskies brought in a new pitcher with the bases loaded, and Ceballos delivered once again with Oregon’s fifth straight single. It brought in two runs, recreating the six-run margin. It was a five-spot for the Ducks, responding to the Huskies’ own five-spot just a couple innings earlier.
“We know it was a tough game,” Ceballos said. “We’re in the same league where anything can happen…. We just get after them again. They make good pitches; we make good comebacks. We make good ABs together. We just compete against them.”
Oregon racked up a whopping 16 hits in the first five innings — 13 of which were singles.
The Huskies led off the bottom of the fifth with three straight singles of their own. After a one-out walk, Oregon replaced McShane with left-hander Grinsell, who started on Tuesday. Washington got a run on a sacrifice fly, but ran into an abysmal baserunning mistake at second base. It became an 11-7 game after five innings — and nearly two and a half hours — of baseball.
Grinsell walked the first batter in the sixth, but then struck out four in a row. He settled in from there, calming the craziness that ensued in the first five innings. He wound up pitching 3 2/3 scoreless innings while striking out six. It was exactly the type of outing Oregon needed, to at least partially rest the bullpen amidst this busy stretch of baseball.
“In the postseason, anything can happen and everyone knows that they gotta step up, and everyone has so far,” Grinsell said. “It’s really cool to watch.”
Offense quieted on both sides in the final four innings. Neither team scored again until the ninth, when Shade recorded his fourth hit of the game to drive in Grant, who also smacked his fourth base knock of the afternoon.
Matt Dallas got the final three outs in a stress-free ninth, officially making the Ducks finalists.
Oregon is now set to play in the final game of the Pac-12 Baseball Tournament Saturday at 7 p.m. The Ducks will face the winner of Friday’s night matchup between Stanford and Arizona.
“Just having fun with each other,” Cowley said. “Enjoying being around the guys. It’s been a lot of fun with this group this year. Just keep going.”
