For the first three games of Oregon’s series with Santa Clara, the Ducks’ offense was largely carried by the batters at the top of the lineup. On Sunday, though, it was the bottom of the order that did the heavy lifting.
The Ducks busted open a no-hitter with three runs in the fifth inning en route to a 3-0 victory over the Broncos. The win capped off a four-game sweep and move Oregon’s record to 11-4 on the year in their non-conference finale.
“We’ll take that anytime,” Oregon head coach George Horton said. “Anytime you can beat up on team four straight times, whether it’s on home or on the road, you’re happy about it. We pitched awfully well and played defense; (Santa Clara) didn’t get an earned run in four games.”
Oregon was held hitless for the first 4.1 innings on Sunday before A.J. Balta reached on an infield single and then advanced to second when Matthew Dyer was hit by a pitch. Two batters later, Spencer Steer, Oregon’s No. 8 hitter, cracked a two-RBI double off the left field wall to give the Ducks a 2-0 lead. Daniel Patzlaff singled up the middle to plate Steer and give Oregon all the run support it would need.
“Spencer, as every game goes by, looks more and more comfortable Horton said. “We think the world of him as a young player. He had some big hits in this series including today.”
Oregon’s fifth inning outburst was one of the lone bright spots during an otherwise unremarkable day at the plate. Oregon struck out just five times, but struggled to tee up Bulldog’s starter Michael Bono’s fastball. Bono scattered four hits in six innings of work, and forced 10 Oregon outs through the air before Steer’s double in the fifth.
“(Bono) was living up in the zone,” Steer said. “He had some velocity, so it was hard to get on top of him. We made sure to zone him down in the later innings and look for pitches that we could hit for line drives.”
Oregon starter Cole Stringer navigated his way through 5.2 scoreless innings and didn’t allow a runner to get further than second base. He gave up four hits and survived a few loud outs, but delivered one of his strongest outings of the year and tossed just 68 pitches.
“It was my fastball today — really just fastball height,” Stringer said. “Just keeping it down low. Playing at PK Park, it’s easy to get fast outs, fly balls, ground balls. It’s really easy to pitch with a defense like this.”
Horton said that he didn’t feel like Stringer had as much life on his fastball as he normally does, and that was partially why he chose to go to the bullpen despite Stringer’s low pitch count. Connor Zwetsch came on to relieve Stringer with two outs in the sixth and tossed 1.1 innings of scoreless baseball.
The Ducks had a chance to add to their lead in the seventh when Steer and Patzlaff each singled with one out. Kyle Kasser than dragged out a 12-pitch at-bat that ended in a pop-up. After hitting a batter to load the bases, Santa Clara reliever Brandon Buckley got Jake Bennett to fly out to end the inning.
Brac Warren, who could still be in the mix for Oregon’s closer spot as the season goes on, came on to pitch the eighth for Oregon and threw another scoreless frame with almost exclusively fastballs. Freshman Kenyon Yovan, who has yet to surrender a run in his college career, allowed two runners to reach base in the ninth before getting a 4-6 groundout to end the game.
“It’s nice to have what we think is the luxary of three stoppers.” Horton said. “Zwetsch has been awfully consistent for us. Kenyon obviously has done his job, and then Brac. … The luxury of having three guys that you trust to give the ball to at the end, if you’re fortunate to have a lead, is nice for us.”
Oregon will travel to Berkeley to begin Pac-12 play with a three-game series against the Bears (6-7).
Follow Jarrid Denney on Twitter @jarrid_denney