After a dominant performance from junior David Peterson on Friday, Oregon’s young guns figured it was their time to shine on Saturday.
Behind seven scoreless innings from sophomore starter Matt Mercer and a four-hit, three-RBI day at the plate from freshman Gabe Matthews, the Ducks beat Santa Clara 10-0 at PK Park Saturday afternoon to extend their winning streak to five games. The win was also head coach George Horton’s 300th of his career
The Ducks scored in all but two innings, and their 10 runs were the third-most in a game this season. Considering Oregon left 11 runners on base, Horton thought they could’ve had more.
“Whenever you’re scoring in a lot of innings, you like that,” Horton said. “I’m a little greedy, I thought we actually were a few at-bats away from turning those into real cricket numbers.”
Oregon wasted no time getting on the board. By the time the first inning was over, the Ducks had a 2-0 lead courtesy of RBI hits from Matthew McCullough and Matthews.
From there, Mercer went to work. He retired the first nine batters he faced before giving up a hit to Andre Nnebe to lead off the fourth inning. One out later, Mercer picked Nnebe off at first. Through five innings, he had faced the minimum 15 batters.
Working with a lead all day definitely seemed to help Mercer.
“It was nice to have some runs early and often,” Mercer said postgame. “Our offense works hard all week and to see some success is really good to see.”
Mercer (2-1) allowed three hits and struck out five in seven scoreless innings.
“I think he might have been able to go [complete game] if we let him go,” Horton said about his starter. “I thought he was much sharper than the last time he pitched. [He] made it look pretty easy.”
Oregon plated single runs in the next three innings and chased Santa Clara starter Grant Nechak with two outs in the fourth. The Broncos then went to reliever Luke Genova, who held Oregon scoreless in the fifth.
But the Ducks got back to their scoring ways in the sixth, starting with a solo home run from Matthews. It was the first collegiate home run for the Salem native.
“Good one to get out of here for my first one,” Matthews said about his home run. “That was a good feeling.”
On the day, Matthews was 4-for-4 at the plate with three singles and a homer. He drove in a game-high three runs and scored two himself. It was the third three-plus hit game for the freshman so far this season.
“He squares a lot of balls up. … He’s a middle of the field kind of hitter and then showed some power late,” Horton said of Matthews. “Coach [Jay] Uhlman was responsible for bringing him into the program and I heard great things about him. He hasn’t disappointed me one bit. He’s got a great future, not only as a DH but he’s really improving as a first baseman as well.”
Oregon scored two more runs in the eighth inning to go up double-digits before Nico Tellache closed the game out in the ninth.
Oregon has now won five straight and will go for the series sweep against Santa Clara on Sunday.
Follow Gus Morris on Twitter @JustGusMorris