Do you remember where you were last year at this time?
If you’re like most of us, you were in the first couple weeks of the term, praying that the
weather was going to finally turn around.
As for the Oregon baseball team, well, let’s just say what a difference a year makes. Because last year at this time the Ducks were in the middle of an epic slide. On April 14, 2009, they lost to Portland 12-8, bumping their record to 12-21. From that point on, Oregon would win just two more times, losing another 21 times.
This year, Oregon is 21-11 and 4-5 in the Pacific-10 Conference. And what did George Horton’s team do this last weekend? It beat the No. 22 Stanford Cardinal in two games out of three to win its first conference series since being reinstated. That’s a pretty big difference from a year ago.
In one series with Stanford, Oregon equaled how many wins it had in all of the Pac-10 last year (2), and the team continues to turn heads. This isn’t the 2009 team at the bottom of the league. This is a new and improved team that will continue to challenge the league.
It’s all because of a new “swag” as shortstop KC Serna puts it. At practice, the team acts more like a team, laughing and joking around more than a year ago. No longer is this the team that couldn’t even scrape together more than two runs a game, or the team that would mentally lose focus. It’s a more mature team.
The losing got so bad last year that Horton was at his wits’ end. I looked back at my notes and it has been almost a year since the Duck skipper held a burning party for a stuffed monkey he had in his backpack to get the “monkey off the team’s back.”
This slightly hilarious — and slightly morbid — antic didn’t help a single bit, as his team continued to slide into the abyss. It was tough to see a born winner lose at the rate Oregon did last year, and that’s what makes this year even better.
But the work still isn’t done for the second-year team. There are 28 games left in this season, and Horton wants to send a message to the rest of the nation that his team isn’t some Johnny-come-lately. The team has shown glimpses of it lately, with the win over then-No. 1 Arizona State, a win over then-No. 4 Cal State Fullerton to start the season, as well as last weekend’s series win over Stanford.
It’s no longer about being happy with winning just a few games like last year. There was no pressure from fans or the athletic department to win more than a game against Oregon State, the home opener, and the first game of last year. Everyone expected the Ducks to be terrible last year. And to be honest, the expectations this year weren’t much higher outside of the players and people close to the team. But Oregon has shown it can compete, and now is the time to make some giant strides in the last half of the season.
Those strides can start with a strong showing against the nation’s new No. 1 — UCLA — this weekend in Los Angeles. The Bruins (26-3, 4-2) took two of three from ranked Oregon State last weekend, and if Oregon wants to make a splash, a win or two against another No. 1 would be the way to do it.
However, I think Oregon’s biggest message will come in the five games it plays against the Beavers. Starting April 27, the in-state rivals play five times until the end of the season, including three times in Corvallis. I’ve seen the Beavers play this year, and from top to bottom Oregon is just as good.
This next part may seem like blasphemy to any OSU fan in the country, but it’s not unreal for me to believe the Ducks are soon to be the best baseball team in the state of Oregon. With another recruiting class rumored to be in the top three in the nation, the Ducks will compete against the Beavers in a very serious way soon, and will probably take at least two games from OSU this year.
One can’t argue with the progress Horton has made at Oregon. It sometimes seems unthinkable that this is even the same program as last year, and it’s not hard to imagine that by next year this Duck team will make a regional playoff.
Let’s just hope that no more stuffed monkeys are hurt in the process.
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