Oregon extended its win streak to five games with a 6-1 victory over the Portland Pilots at PK Park on Tuesday.
Starting pitcher Cole Stringer made short work of his outing, putting in four innings of one hit baseball and striking out five batters. He also picked up his fourth win of the season — his first in four starts. Tuesday’s game was a chance for the Oregon bullpen to get plenty of short work with five pitchers coming in to relieve Stringer. No relief pitcher pitched more than 1.2 innings of work.
“His short outing had more to do with what’s out in front of us this weekend,” head coach George Horton said of Stringer. “Had we not had a big weekend in front of us then he definitely could have gone deeper into the game.”
Portland struck first with an RBI double in the top of the first inning, but that was their only run of the game. Oregon’s scoring came in pairs with the Ducks scoring a pair of runs in the first, third and fourth innings. Matthew Dyer gave the Ducks the lead with a two-RBI double in the bottom of the first. In the third inning Kyle Kasser scored on a sac-fly and later in the inning Jake Bennett scored on a wild pitch. In the fourth inning Morgan McCullough hit an RBI-single and later scored to give the team their final margin of the game.
This was just a one-game series for the Ducks and the Pilots. It was their second head-to-head matchup of the season, with the Ducks winning a 1-0 game last month in Portland. The teams will play one additional time on April 19 in Portland to wrap the season series.
Before that however, the Ducks will head to Tucson, Arizona for a three-game series against the Arizona Wildcats that begins on Thursday.
Follow Zak Laster on Twitter @zlast3445