The Portland Pilots just have Oregon’s number on the baseball diamond. The Pilots beat the Ducks for the second time this season, this time holding them to one run, in the 3-1 win at PK Park on Tuesday afternoon.
The Pilots beat Oregon 4-0 on March 20 behind the shutout pitching of Scott Burris. This time around, the combined pitching of starter Ed Wakefield, and relievers Brent Miller, Keeler Brynteson and Zach Varce stymied the Ducks.
The offensive effort is the second straight game in which Oregon has scored just one run.
“It was almost as lackadaisical as Sunday’s effort against the Beavers,” head coach George Horton said. We didn’t play as sloppy on defense, but where it showed up was on offense. We didn’t put any pressure on anyone. Our at-bats were non-competitive. We were striking out looking and chasing pitches. I don’t think we were locked in very well today.”
“It’s obvious we’re struggling a bit. Team morale is down a bit,” third baseman Danny Pulfer said. “We’re wondering ourselves what’s going on. We had a big win Saturday, and we were living a little bit in the moment the day after, but it’s hard with a young team to find out a way to find some seniority and find that spark.”
Wakefield only went four innings and Miller earned the win, going two innings and giving up the only Duck run on three hits. Wakefield surrendered the other Duck hit.
For Oregon, six pitchers touched the mound, including shortstop and designated hitter KC Serna and starter Bennett Whitmore. Chris Garrison started for Oregon and he took the loss. Garrison went 4.2 innings, giving up four hits and two runs while striking out four Pilot hitters.
Garrison started off the game cruising, setting down the first 11 batters in order, but Beau Fraser broke up the string with a line drive single with two outs in the fourth inning.
Then the Pilots broke the 0-0 tie in the top of the fifth with back-to-back home runs from first baseman Cort Carpenter and second baseman Riley Henricks. The Ducks then escaped a bases load jam when reliever Madison Boer got Fraser to ground out to end the inning.
Oregon responded in the bottom of the inning with a RBI single from Pulfer, scoring Antony Kreitz from second, but that would be the only production in the game. Oregon managed just one hit over the last four innings, including six strikeouts.
“It’s pretty frustrating to hit balls pretty squarely and then get doubled up,” Kreitz said. “Paul (Eshleman) hit one about as hard as you can and it was right at the second baseman.”
Portland added another run in the top of the eighth off of Whitmore when designated hitter Bryant Kraus hit a line drive sacrifice to left field to score third baseman Kevin Armijo from third.
Pulfer led the Ducks from the plate, going 1-for-2 with and RBI and two walks.
Next up for Oregon is a three game series with the Stanford Cardinal starting Friday in Eugene. Game one starts at 3 p.m.
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