Going 0-2 is never fun. 

We can all conclude that flying down to Scottsdale, Arizona, to be the No. 3 seed in the Pac-12 tournament only to lose back-to-back games and turn right back home wasn’t the plan for the Oregon Ducks. 

It’s a bummer, a disappointment and a case of underachievement in a bad time. 

But it happens, baseball’s weird like that. Heck, it happened in Oregon’s first Pac-12 Tournament run in 2022. In 2023, the Ducks won it all. In 2024, they were two-and-out again.

The biggest issue was easy to pinpoint, head coach Mark Wasikowski nailed it when he said, “We scored four runs in two games. Below the line. Below the standard.” after his team lost its second 4-2 game in as many days. 

The offense just didn’t get going. Unfortunate timing? Of course. But it happens. 

Frankly, it shouldn’t be overly surprising. The Ducks are dead last in the conference in batting average in Pac-12 games (.247). So, it’s not like the strength of the team abandoned the squad in the Pac-12 Tournament. It was still below its standard — the Ducks were 13-66 in their two games (.197) — but it was a very small two-game sample size. 

What concerns me was the lack of hitting from the guys who had been hot entering the tournament. 

Jacob Walsh was 0-9 with four strikeouts. Bryce Boettcher, Maddox Molony and Drew Smith only recorded one hit each despite starting both games. That’s what concerned me. 

That, and the strikeouts. Oregon had 19 total strikeouts across its two games offensively. Walsh had four, Smith had three, Mason Neville had three and Molony had three. 

But again, this has been a team that’s been fairly consistent in either extra-base hits or homers this season. So, again, that wasn’t overly uncharacteristic. 

But, there were a lot of uncompetitive at-bats and ugly strikeouts by the Ducks’ bats. Utah’s Bryson Van Sickle and USC’s William Watson were both able to use their offspeed pitches extremely effectively and kept Oregon’s offense off-balance in both games. 

Wasikowski credited the two arms his team faced, pointing out that Van Sickle had been named Pac-12 Pitcher of the Year and that Watson was getting a remarkable amount of MLB Draft chatter. 

The Ducks ran into a couple of wagons on the mound. Maybe they couldn’t see the ball great at Scottsdale Stadium, maybe they were trying to do too much, but maybe they just got beat by two of the better pitchers the conference has to offer. 

That, and they just couldn’t cash in on opportunities. Oregon was 2-14 with runners in scoring position in the tournament. That’s just not a recipe for success. 

While the results were admittedly disappointing, the team’s main strength — its pitching — performed pretty well. If I had told you on Monday that the Ducks’ pitching staff would limit its opponents to eight runs in pool play, you would have assumed that they won at least one game. 

The pitching, clearly, is where it needs to be for the NCAA Tournament — which Oregon should still be a lock to play in. Two of the Ducks’ starters —  Grayson Grinsell and Kevin Seitter — never even pitched. 

For a minute, after the Ducks opted to use their three best relievers — Brock Moore, Logan Mercado and Bradley Mullan — in a game they didn’t need to win, it looked like pitching decisions might be what haunted Oregon in the tournament. 

It didn’t matter. 

The bottom line is that the Ducks had opportunities, they just didn’t square balls up when they needed to. That happens in baseball. The Pac-12 Tournament didn’t grant teams a lot of wiggle room. In a longer format, who knows, maybe Oregon gets hot and attacks the other pitchers it faces. 

Now the reality sinks in: Oregon played its last Pac-12 conference games this week. Absolutely absurd to think about. 

Wasikowski was sentimental about the conference after the loss to USC. He’s a proud West Coast man, and he loved the Pac-12. He’s always preached about the strength of baseball out West — the Pac-12 has more NCAA National Championships than any other conference — and the competitive style of ball that’s played on the West Coast. 

His pitch to the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee?

Send the Pac-12 out in style. Reward the history of the Conference of Champions by putting “as many Pac-12 teams as you can in the tournament.”

Now, that’s unlikely. I’d be surprised to see more than four — Arizona, Oregon State, Oregon and the winner of the Pac-12 Tournament should it not be the Wildcats. But, it’s an intriguing pitch and would be fun to see. 

“Put [the Pac-12] on a national scale,” Wasikowski said. “Put it on a national scene and let those guys play against whoever from whatever conference and see how big of boys [Pac-12 players] are.”

The Ducks should make a regional, giving them at least two more games to don the Pac-12 patch on their sleeves. It’ll be weird to see Oregon change conferences next year. But for now, all we can do is wonder what could have happened if the Ducks had strung together just a few more timely hits in Scottsdale.