In retrospect, this season has been similar to last year for the Oregon baseball team.
The Ducks went into 2021 on the outside looking in at the top 25, with no expectations of being an elite team. The only difference going into this year was the increase in those expectations. Still, Oregon was once again left unranked as the team lost key players like Aaron Zavala, Kenyon Yovan, Gabe Matthews and Robert Ahlstrom.
But just like last year, the Ducks have proved their top-25 worthiness with their performance on the field. They’ve won their first three Pac-12 series, including a win over then-No. 2 Stanford and a sweep of Utah. They’ve also won three midweek games in that span, including one over No. 19 Gonzaga.
Oregon now finds itself back in the polls, just like last year. Monday was the first time this season that the Ducks were ranked in the top 25 of all six major college baseball publications. D1Baseball had them at No. 21, and the highest they were placed was at No. 11 by College Baseball. And this was before their two-game sweep of San Francisco.
“We try not to care too much about rankings, but it’s always good to see us up there,” Oregon reliever Christian Ciuffetelli said. “We’re not happy with 11 or 20 or whatever they had us at. We want to be No. 1.”
From an offensive standpoint, there’s no debate that the Ducks are one of the best teams in the country. They’ve scored 219 runs in 24 games, good for the 15th-highest total in the nation.
“Offensively, there’s a mentality of guys that want to hit,” head coach Mark Wasikowski said. “That’s number one. Number two, I think it’s a long lineup. There’s guys over the long haul, you see that it’s tough to get us out, one through nine. There’s guys that can hit and hit the ball out of the ballpark.”
The Ducks are doing all this without one of their best hitters in Drew Cowley, who broke his hamate bone but is expected to return in about a week. Lengthening the lineup can be contributed mainly to the additions of Jacob Walsh and Brennan Milone, as well as the explosive breakout of Colby Shade. Returning players Tanner Smith, Josh Kasevich and Anthony Hall have been as solid as expected, while Gavin Grant has stepped up.
This powerful Ducks lineup wasn’t always at their most potent last week, but they still found a way to power through and win four out of five games. They fell back to Earth in a 6-5 heartbreaker on Saturday against USC, which carried into the first six innings of Sunday’s game.
A dramatic late-innings comeback quickly shifted the momentum back into gear. After coming away with a 7-6 win on Sunday, the Ducks scored 10 runs in the first inning of Tuesday’s game against San Francisco. They won handily, 15-5.
They had an offensive scare on Wednesday, down 3-2 in the ninth. But they showed their resilience once again, scratching out a run in each of the ninth and eleventh innings. Kasevich had a big day while Grant provided the walk-off infield hit.
“They could have quit,” Wasikowski said. “And there’s probably teams out there that would have quit and gotten sad because it wasn’t easy.”
Starting pitching has still been an issue for this team, with its ace Adam Maier still out indefinitely with an injury. RJ Gordon and Isaac Ayon threw five and six innings, respectively, in the first two games of the USC series, but they gave up a total of 12 runs. Caleb Sloan had a disastrous one-inning start on Sunday, and the Ducks have been forced to go with bullpen games regularly.
“Sometimes it’s not pretty,” Wasikowski said. “At the end of the day, I don’t think anybody’s gonna care at the end of the year. It’s gonna be a win instead of a loss, and that’s the objective is to win the game.”
All-American closer Kolby Somers has been as great as expected, giving up just one run and striking out 15 in 10 innings. Relievers like Rio Britton, Matt Dallas and Logan Mercado have stepped up, solidifying a strong Oregon bullpen which has often had to pitch more innings than the starters. Mercado is embracing a mentality of “pitching angry,” helping to overcome the team’s starting pitching woes.
“Our bullpen’s been awesome,” Ciuffetelli said. “Guys just coming in throwing strikes with nasty stuff. We’ve got some real competitors. Not worried about our starters; I think our starters are great. Obviously they’ve maybe struggled a little bit, but we’re not losing trust in them.”
Ducks pitchers have averaged 4.95 walks per nine innings this year, a number which only recently dipped below five. That ranks 205th in the nation, which is not ideal for a team that wants to solidify a spot in the top 25. Wasikowski has repeatedly expressed his intolerance for all the free passes, and he’s pulled short hooks on pitchers who have struggled with walks.
“I’m not going to sit there and watch guys walk in people,” Wasikowski said on March 24. “Not very patient with that kind of stuff. So if guys want to go out there and dance around the zone and not pitch the way the standard at Oregon has been, then they won’t get the ball.”
This weekend, Oregon (18-7, 7-2 Pac-12) will travel to UCLA (16-8, 3-3 Pac-12) for a three-game series. Gordon and Ayon are still expected to start Friday and Saturday, while Sunday is up for grabs. Regardless of who pitches, the bullpen will likely need to be a key asset once again.
The series starts at 6 p.m. Friday in Jackie Robinson Stadium.
“Coach [John] Savage is a really good coach,” Wasikowksi said of the Bruins. “Their program has been a very, very good program, and so we’ll have a tall task, and it’s one that I think our guys are looking forward to.”
