SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — If the Oregon baseball team is to win a second straight Pac-12 Tournament title, it’ll take winning three must-win games over the next three days.
The Ducks (37-17) lost their opening game of pool play Wednesday, managing just four hits in a 4-2 loss to Utah. Oregon will face USC on Thursday at 2:30 p.m., needing to win to earn a tiebreaker in their three-team pool and advance to Friday’s semifinals.
“You need to play with better details than we did today,” UO coach Mark Wasikowski said. “There were some things that we did well — I thought Brock Moore gave us a good start today; there were some things that we did effectively defensively. But we didn’t do enough offensively to have any sort of sustained effort, and that needs to improve.”
Oregon led twice Wednesday, but Utah broke a 2-2 tie with two runs in the bottom of the seventh inning. That made a winner of Pac-12 pitcher of the year Bryson Van Sickle, who allowed just one earned run over seveninnings.
“When you’re facing a guy as good as him, you’re going to have to be at your best,” Wasikowski said. “And we weren’t.”
How It Happened: Making his first start of the season, Moore allowed two runs on seven hits and a walk over four innings, with seven strikeouts. His first run allowed came on an RBI triple in the fourth, after stranding runners in scoring position each of the first three innings.
“It’s baseball — you’re gonna get hit,” Moore said. “Some days you’re gonna go six innings, one hit; sometimes you’re gonna give up hits. You just can’t let it affect you because you’ve got a new batter. First one got you; next one can’t get you.”
Before Moore allowed the run in the fourth, Oregon had taken the lead an inning earlier. Carter Garate walked with one out in the thrid, took second on a passed ball, reached third on a failed pickoff attempt and scored on a wild pitch.
After the Utes tied it, the Ducks answered in the fifth when Chase Meggers tripled with one out and Bryce Boettcher followed with an RBI single. The Utes then loaded the bases with none out in the fifth, having chased Moore after a leadoff single. UO reliever Logan Mercado walked in the tying run, but then coaxed a ground ball that Garate fielded before throwing home to start a double play, helping Oregon get out of the inning without further damage.
Another double play when the Utes had runners at the corners with one out in the sixth kept the game tied. Again in the seventh Utah put runners at the corners with one out, but Meggers picked off the runner at third, putting the Ducks in position to wriggle out of another jam.
“We had some big defensive plays: We had two double plays, we had a back-pick, we threw a couple of guys out on the bases,” Wasikowski said. “And so yeah, there were some things we did that were good internally.But, just not good enough with the effort that we put out there with the bats.”
And despite the timely pick by Meggers, Utah ended up breaking through in the seventh after all. UO reliever Bradley Mullan (4-1) walked the next two hitters to load the bases with two out, and the next hitter chopped a ground ball up the middle that got through to plate two runs.
The Ducks were the retired in order over the final two innings, setting up a must-win game Thursday. If Oregon beats the Trojans, all three teams in the pod will have gone 1-1, and the No. 3-seeded Ducks would advance based on their higher seed.
The Ducks face USC on Thursday (2:30 p.m., Pac-12 Network).
