The Ducks (42-14, 19-8 Pac-12) beat Portland (25-24, 12-12 West Coast Conference) 2-1 Wednesday night in a makeup of the Ducks rained-out home opener. Oregon pitching held the Pilots to just three hits on the night with Joey Housey, Tommy Thorpe and Jimmie Sherfy each pitching a perfect inning in relief of Jordan Spencer. Kyle Kraus took a tough loss on the mound despite giving up just two runs over eight innings. @@http://www.goducks.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=500&ATCLID=205430519@@ @@http://www.pac-12.org/SPORTS/Baseball/Standings.aspx@@ @@http://www.wccsports.com/sports/m-basebl/west-m-basebl-body.html@@
Spencer improved to 4-2 and picked up his second win of the season against the Pilots after his no-hitter on April 18. Spencer scattered three hits across six innings while striking out three batters. Ducks head coach George Horton said the effort was Spencer’s second-best performance of the season, after the no-hitter. @@http://www.goducks.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPID=11401&DB_OEM_ID=500&ATCLID=205416016@@
“We couldn’t have asked for anything more,” Horton said.
Portland took a 1-0 lead in the top half of the sixth inning when a hit batter came around to hurt Spencer, but the Ducks struck back in the bottom half to take the 2-1 lead.
Both of Oregon’s runs in the sixth were knocked in with two outs on back-to-back hits from Ryon Healy and Kyle Garlick. The Ducks have made a habit of scoring with two outs this year, with Garlick leading the charge with 18 of the Ducks 96 two-out RBI this season. @@http://www.pac-12.org/portals/7/images/baseball/stats/2011-12/HTML/ore.htm@@
“It’s the same as every at-bat,” Garlick said. “You just try to take every at-bat one at a time.”
Garlick had a brief night of work, seeing just one pitch as a pinch hitter in the sixth inning before being replaced by Vernell Warren in what was a very busy fourth spot on the Ducks lineup card. Brett Thomas started the night for the Ducks but left the game in the fourth inning after injuring his leg rounding second base.@@http://www.goducks.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=500&ATCLID=1279831@@
Horton said he didn’t have any specific information on Thomas’s injury, but hopes he will be able to play by Friday.
“He tried to put on the brakes and hurt something, we’re not sure what it is,” Horton said. “Hopefully he’ll be available for the weekend and if he isn’t than somebody else gets a chance to play.”
Housey and Thorpe each pitched 1-2-3 innings in the seventh and eighth respectively before Horton gave the ball to Sherfy. The Ducks closer made quick work of the Pilots, striking out each of the three batters he faced to earn his 17th save of the season to move him into a tie for fifth nationally. @@http://www.ncaa.com/stats/baseball/d1/current/individual/209@@
It was another strong offensive response by the Ducks to the increasingly infamous “Techno Chicken” promotional video at PK Park after the Ducks scored all four of their runs on Saturday after the video was played before the start of the sixth inning. While they’re not giving it too much credit, the Ducks admit the fan-favorite video has a positive role in the dugout too.
“Sometimes you’re playing too tight and it loosens it up and and gets us laughing and on to the task at hand,” Healy said.
That task at hand is now the Oregon State Beavers and the Ducks’ final Pac-12 series of the year. Oregon needs just two wins to clinch at least a share of the conference title — a bit of a role reversal from last season when the Beavers needed two wins at PK Park to win the Pac-10. @@http://www.goducks.com/SportSelect.dbml?SPSID=94835&SPID=11401&DB_OEM_ID=500&Q_SEASON=2010@@
Even with Oregon State motivated to play the spoiler role however, the Ducks don’t feel as if they’ll need any extra motivation come Friday night.
“We’ve never really had a specific focus besides playing the game of baseball,” Healy said. “We’ve always had faceless opponents no matter who we’ve played.”
The Ducks will find out on Sunday if they will host a regional and will learn their opponents during Monday’s selection show.