Baseball: Game 1 Oregon vs Washington Recap

The Ducks came into this weekend in a tight race for second in the Big Ten Standings and an outside chance at the number one spot in the Big Ten still up for grabs. Standing in the Ducks way this weekend is their biggest rival, the Washington Huskies.

To absolutely no one’s surprise Oregon gave the ball in the opener to ace Grayson Grinsell with the hopes of picking up a win in the opener. After Grinsell pitched a scoreless opening inning the Ducks offence went to work early to give the Ducks the lead. Mason Neville would get into scoring position on a sac bunt after a lead off walk and it was Jacob Walsh who would deliver an RBI single to score the Ducks first run of the game.

After a Duck batter was hit by a pitch Anson Aroz would deliver another RBI single to score the Ducks 2nd run of the game

Washington’s pitcher then started to unravel, walking two straight Ducks batters to score another Duck run, and then hitting a second Duck in the inning to score yet another run and give Oregon an early 4-0 lead.

Grayson Grinsell would cruise through the next 2 innings but then ran into a bit of trouble in the 4th inning. After the Huskies loaded the bases, Grinsell needed to get a big out to keep the Huskies off the board and he would do just that striking out the Washington batter to keep the Dogs off the board.

The next inning Grinsell got back to mowing down Washington batters with ease as he was able to get through the next 3 innings only allowing a single hit and holding the Huskies scoreless after 7.

That would be all for Grinsell on the day but he pitched an absolute gem. Grinsell went 7 innings allowing no runs, 3 hits, and one walk, while striking out 8.

After the Ducks had opened the scoring in the 1st they weren’t able to get much going the rest of the game until the bottom of the 7th when Jeffrey Heard sent a long bomb out to right field to make it a 5-0 ball game.

Cole Stokes would take over in the 8th inning and he would get the ultra rare 4th strikeout in the inning. No typo, you read that correctly, 4th strikeout.

Seth Mattox would come in for the 9th and he would seal the deal for Oregon giving the Ducks a 5-0 win in the opening game of the rivalry series against Washington.

With the win Oregon pulls a full game over USC (who lost Friday) for 3rd in the Big Ten. It is worth noting that Oregon has the tie-breaker over the Trojans thanks to the sweep of USC earlier this season.

The Ducks also keep pace with UCLA for second in the Big Ten after UCLA won Friday night. Also worth noting that Oregon holds the tie-breaker over the Bruins as well thanks to the series win over UCLA a couple of weeks ago.

Oregon will look to secure the series win over Washington on Saturday in game 2 of the 3 game series. First pitch scheduled for 2:05PM.