Oregon (4-2, 1-2 Northern Pacific Region Conference) proved over the weekend that what starts well doesn’t always end well.
Entering the bottom of the seventh inning of game one of their series with the Seattle Redhawks, the Ducks found themselves looking at a 2-0 hole. This was nothing new for the Ducks, though. They found themselves in a similar situation in the first game of their series two weeks ago with the University of Montana.
They made a comeback win then, and duplicated the feat Saturday with a little help from their bench.
Two outs after Bryan Hansen’s triple and Andrew Murphy’s single had pulled the Ducks to within one, pinch-hitter Matt Zabriske was called up in place of relief pitcher Greg Wells.
Zabriske responded with a ringing double to bring Murphy home for the tying run.
With a man on second and still two down in the frame, the game was on the shoulders of freshman rightfielder Corey Johnson.
After getting in a quick 0-2 hole, Johnson just missed on two fastballs from Redhawks hurler Sean Namanny, fouling both pitches back to the screen.
He didn’t miss pitch number five.
Johnson took Nemanny’s next offering, a fifth-consecutive fastball, this time up and out over the plate, and socked it over the rightfielder’s head and into the unmowed patch of grass beyond where a fence would normally be.
“I knew that the pitcher looked pretty mad at himself, so I knew he was just going to be throwing fastballs, and I just turned on it,” Johnson said. Game two starter Bryan Hansen was masterful, facing just one batter more than the minimum and fanning six Redhawks in as many frames. Matching him pitch-for-pitch, though, was Seattle’s Nick Richey. The sophomore held Oregon’s offense scoreless for the first five innings. Unlike Hansen though, Richey had to toil to be effective. He had thrown 65 pitches and allowed eight Ducks to reach base in that span, and his fatigue began to show in the sixth.
Hansen then let everybody know exactly why he resides squarely in the middle of the Oregon order when he took a 2-0 fastball and hammered it over the left-field wall.
“It was a fastball right down the middle, 2-0 count, just looking for something to get a good piece of and it was right there, so I hit it out,” Hansen said.
Hansen’s blast gave the Ducks a 1-0 advantage heading into the top of the seventh, which, with the way Hansen had been disposing of the Redhawks order, looked like it would be all the offense they would need.
Unfortunately for Oregon, it had been two weeks since the last time Hansen had pitched and 61 pitches, it seemed, was enough to gas him.
Seattle catcher Augie Matteo opened the seventh with a single and came home three pitches later on Keegan Nokes’ triple. The Redhawks had come back to tie it and were still threatening with a man on third and nobody down.
Oregon caught a break when Nokes was thrown out trying to score on cleanup hitter Nick Shekeryk’s weak grounder to first. Hansen settled down from there, getting Richey to bounce out to second and striking out Jordan Chanes one hitter later to end the threat and send the game to extras.
The Redhawks struck quickly in the eighth, using an RBI single from Matteo to score what would prove to be the game-winner. The negative note the second game ended on continued into game three on Sunday when Seattle second baseman Nick Blanchard touched up Jonathan Jwayad’s second pitch, a hanging curve, over the left-field wall for a leadoff home run.
Jwayad settled down after that, allowing just one more run before he was removed in the fourth in favor of lefty David Tinsley.
Oregon’s bats were silenced once again in game three, this time by Seattle starter Kevin Roach. Roach allowed two runs, both scored on a series of bunts and errors in the sixth inning, in his complete-game domination of the Ducks. Roach, the league’s player of the week for February 26 through March 4, allowed six hits and struck out four during his 105-pitch effort.
Afterward, Jwayad said his team will work hard to wake up the bats before its series with Weber State in La Grande, Ore. March 16-17.
“We’re going to be in the cages and we’re going to have pitchers throwing live instead of just normal BP so the batters can see a different variety of pitches than just batting practice.”
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