Oregon baseball wraps up its first week of practice with a scrimmage today at 1:30 p.m. at PK Park.
The scrimmage, which is closed to the public as the field and surrounding area is still considered a construction zone, will feature the first string against the second string in an eight-inning “skins” format, where the team that wins each inning gets one point. The last three innings are worth two points.
The Ducks scrimmaged in this fashion Wednesday and Thursday, with the first string winning Wednesday and the second string taking Thursday’s contest. The winning team each day feasted on the spoils of victory – candy bars.
“They’ve been kind of wearing it, so to speak. They’ve been getting beat up pretty good,” Oregon head coach George Horton said of the second unit. “Today they said ‘Enough of that, we’re going to come after them,’ and they did and they got the candy bars.”
The results are indicative of the status of all of the starting positions on the field. None of the Ducks have a history of performance within the program. Thus, while coaches have determined the first and second string lineup, each position is still very much up for grabs.
“Our second-stringers are pretty good players so if the first-stringers get complacent there’s a lot of guys that want their jobs. It’s an ongoing challenge,” said Horton. “There are some guys on that B team that are pretty close to cracking the starting lineup.”
The mixed results of this week’s scrimmages are also indicative of the inconsistency of the young team, Horton said.
“I left practice (Wednesday) feeling really good. I thought we had our best practice since we’ve been together working,” Horton said. “Then we showed up (Thursday) and just kind of threw the gloves out there … (Friday) we’re putting on our white uniforms for the first time and competing with them and hopefully it will be a good reflection on picking it up a little bit.”
Projected starting center fielder junior Curtis Raulinaitis will be the lone injury scratch from the lineup for the scrimmage today. He came up limping in base-running drills Thursday.
There was initial concern that the injury was a torn or pulled Achilles tendon but upon further examination trainers determined it was likely a bruised heel. Horton said he expects Raulinaitis to be recovered and ready for the Ducks’ season opener Friday, Feb. 20, in Moraga, Calif., against St. Mary’s.
“He’s one of our best players and experienced players … I held my breath there,” Horton said. “That’s going to be one of our issues because we’re not very deep that we can lose some of our front line players on defense or offense. If we do it could be pretty rough on us.”
[email protected]