Oregon baseball (23-20, Pac-12 8-11) fell to Arizona (20-23, Pac-12 8-14) 17-6 Friday night, as the pitching staff continued to struggle.

With the game scoreless heading into the third inning, the Oregon bats came alive. The Ducks exploded for five runs off of six hits. With Cameron Campbell on second, hot-hitting Sam Novitske plated him to give Oregon a 1-0 lead. After Tanner Smith singled, Gabe Matthews clobbered a ball into deep left center field for a double, giving the Ducks a 3-0.

The Ducks continued to attack Arizona starter Randy Labaut, plating two more runs in the inning courtesy of a Jonny DeLuca home run extending the lead to 5-0, before Jakob Goldfarb struck out looking to end the inning.  

However, the lead would be short lived. Even though Oregon starter Cole Stringer entered the third with a five run lead, his command had been spotty in the first two innings. Arizona’s bats stayed patient in their approach, chasing Stringer from the game after only getting one out in the third.

In that time, Arizona scored three runs off of four hits and a walk, before Brett Walker came in relief of Stringer with runners on first and second. Walker would give up a double, which plated Blake Paugh, and a groundout, which scored a run tying the game at five a piece.

It would get worse for the Ducks, who after retaking the lead in the top of the fourth, gave up five runs in the seventh. Keaton Chase relieved Walker in the sixth and gave up four runs off of three hits and two walks, but errors also hurt him, and the rest of the staff in the late innings. By the end of the eighth inning, the Wildcats had scored 12 unanswered runs.

In total, the Ducks committed six errors throughout the game and used seven pitchers who combined to walk 10 batters.

Robert Ahlstrom has recovered from an illness and will start Saturday as the Ducks will try to rebound against the Wildcats.