If one were to remove the first inning from Tuesday’s final score, the contest would have looked a lot closer than it actually was. In fact, the game would have required extra innings.
Unfortunately for Oregon, a disastrous seven-run first inning led to the No. 17 Ducks (22-9, 8-4 Pac-12) getting demolished at home by Sacramento State (15-19, 6-9 WAC).
It looked to be a favorable midweek series for Oregon.
Sacramento State got to Oregon starter Michael Freund early. A sequence of six straight hits — three singles followed by three doubles — saw the Hornets erupt for an early 5-0 lead with just one out in the first. Then, a two-run homer off the bat of Ryan Christiansen put the Ducks behind by a touchdown before they got a chance to bat.
Entering the week, Freund had just allowed nine earned runs on the season. He surrendered seven across 40 pitches in the first inning on Tuesday. His day ended after a scoreless second. He earned his first loss of the season as his record dropped to 3-1 and his ERA rose to 5.92.
“Shoot, they just hit him,” Oregon head coach Mark Wasikowski said. “I’d have to go over the tape but I would imagine a lot of those pitches were over the middle part of the plate and they got to [Freund]. Credit to them.”
The Ducks’ bats got going in the bottom of the second. A trio of singles from the bottom of Oregon’s lineup brought its first run across. Carter Garate doubled two more home and scored on a wild pitch as the Ducks cut the lead to 7-4.
Both squads pushed a run across in the third as the two pitching staffs turned to their bullpens. Standard of midweek games, Tuesday’s contest was a team effort on the mound for the Ducks and the Hornets.
After Oregon got a run back in the bottom of the fourth on a Jacob Walsh RBI single, another ugly inning allowed the Hornets to score three more. Two singles, two sacrifice bunts and two errors brought three unearned runs across and halted any momentum the Ducks looked to have. A bunt attempt to first baseman Dominic Hellman got thrown away and allowed a run to score. Two batters later, a ground ball to Hellman ricocheted off his body and into the Oregon dugout. Two more runs scored on the dead ball and Sacramento State took an 11-6 lead.
In addition to piling on the Hornets’ lead, Hellman’s back-to-back blunders also spoiled what was otherwise a solid relife outing for Collin Clarke. Across his four complete innings, he allowed four runs (but only one was earned) on six hits while fanning three. It could have kept Oregon in the game. Instead, the ranked Ducks fell to the below-.500 Hornets at home.
“We had a couple of defensive miscues,” Wasikowski said. “We just didn’t play very good baseball today.”
Jeffery Heard was 0-5 in his first game against his former team. Oregon’s offense struck-out 12 times — three by both Bryce Boettcher and Carter Garate — but otherwise had a quality night as it tallied eight runs on 10 hits. The Sacramento State defense dazzled on a handful of occasions, robbing Oregon of several more hits. The Ducks just couldn’t overcome an abysmal first inning.
Christainsen sent his second two-run shot out to right field in the top of the seventh. As his blast bounced off the roof over the bullpen, the Hornets more than doubled Oregon’s tally to take a 13-6 lead.
Oregon responded in the bottom of the eighth as Maddox Molony sent his third homer of the season out to left-center to drive in a pair. After missing the beginning of the year with injuries, Molony is now hitting .415 through 41 at-bats.
In all, the Hornets tallied 19 hits on Tuesday as the offense hit a collective .442. Seven players recorded multi-hit performances — including four from Cameron Sewell and three from as Sacramento State earned its second win of the season over a Power 5 opponent (7-5 over Minnesota on March 1).
“They had more consistently good at-bats than we did and that’s why they won,” Wasikowski said.
Oregon and Sacramento State will face off again Wednesday night at PK Park for the finale of their two-game series. First pitch is slated for 5:05 p.m.
