It seems nailed-on that Will Sanford, Collin Clarke, Cal Scolari and Ryan Featherston will be the Ducks’ four arms this weekend against George Mason. Maddox Molony and Ryan Cooney will lead Oregon up the middle, likely with Drew Smith at third.

Everything else in the Oregon baseball stratosphere is pretty much up in the air a day before the first pitch of head coach Mark Wasikowski’s seventh season at the helm.

Four games this weekend (two on Saturday) against the George Mason University Patriots should provide a great deal of context on how the infrastructure of a Ducks team with College Baseball World Series aspirations will look.

Based strictly off of three Wasikowski press conferences and the general vibe around the team, freshman Angel Laya, along with transfers Gabe Miranda and Josh Schleichardt, should receive ample opportunity to earn a spot early on in the season. Returners Ian Umlandt, Dominic Helmman, Jax Gimenez and Jack Brooks are all but certain to have an impact this year as well.

In the rotation, Sanford and Scolari, a transfer from the University of San Diego, have received ample buzz from coaches and teammates alike.

“He’s a big, strong kid, really good arm,” Wasikowski said of Scolari. “Why did we go on him? It was kind of a no-brainer, everybody went on him. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the kid throws really hard and his breaking stuff is really good… looks like a Friday guy.”

Sanford finished the year with a 6.39 ERA and struggled with command issues late last season as he threw less and less down the stretch. The sophomore, however, impressed Wasikowski enough over the fall to earn the ball in the first game of the season.

“We’re not just going to pitch him on Game 1 because we had a contract demand with him or something like that,” Wasikowski said. “That’s not the case. He’s earned it — and so my expectation is for him to just go out there and pitch the way we’ve seen him in fall scrimmages and spring scrimmages, which has been really elite.”

“That guy’s got an elite fastball,” Featherston said. “And he tends to bully people with it.”

Sanford will look to bully a George Mason team that went 40-21 last season and an impressive 20-10 in conference play. Oregon will need to start off on the right foot against the Patriots, who were in games against legitimate competition last season. Owen Clyne is George Mason’s superstar, as the shortstop slashed .341/.429/.447 last season and was named the preseason Atlantic 10 Player of the Year.

Wasikowski believes his four starters will be more than up to the challenge this weekend — something imperative, as offense typically lags behind pitching and defense to begin the year, especially in cold, rainy Eugene.

“Those guys have done a nice job with their stuff, with their development, with their game management,” Wasikowski said. “There’s a lot of boxes they’re checking, and that’s why they’re getting the ball as starters on the weekend.”