Charles Fischer

0-0 after two innings. Like yesterday--both starting pitchers are very, very tough. How do you strike out FOUR in one inning? A third strike slipped through the catcher's mitt to the backstop, and the batter made it to first base. But it did not matter with Clarke...

We don't need to see a game summary of this one. We couldn't hit, and we did not pitch well... ------------------------------------------------------------- Thank goodness the weather report is for clouds, but little or no rain today. The Ducks feature starting pitcher, Collin Clarke, who has an incredible 2.08 ERA vs. the starter for the Scarlet Knights who is at a very good 3.80 ERA. In the end...the ERA is helpful looking at past history, but today could be quite different with how a pitcher is doing. Yesterday the Rutgers starter had an ERA over 9.00, because of early outings, (like two of our pitchers) but yesterday we only got one run off him. He was super, thus ERA in the past meant nothing. Ditto for last Sunday when Oregon's Will Sanford had an ERA of only 2.25, but had a bad day and got shelled. We just have to assume that all opposing pitchers are good, and fortunately for Our Beloved Ducks...we have pitching depth unlike any other year that I've watched Oregon Baseball. Let's win the series today! Stud Collin Clarke on the Hill for OBD...

Started out shooting great, but got to keep it going! The rebounding advantage over the course of the game will be huge... Almost halftime and 39-20, DUCKS.

No. 9 Oregon Baseball Takes Game One in Walk-Off Fashion Over Rutgers EUGENE, Ore. — For the first time in either school's history, Oregon and Rutgers met on the diamond as they began a three-game series on Friday night at PK Park. As the rain continued to fall, seemingly never-ending in the park's confines, the No. 9 ranked Ducks secured a 4-3 victory, as Parker Stinson made his Oregon debut, pinch-hitting in the bottom of the ninth. His sacrifice fly to center field gave the Ducks the win, their 18th of the season and sixth in the conference. "I mean, we're able to get a Friday night win. It's hard to do, and I was proud of the team's resiliency," said head coach Mark Wasikowski. "I thought they continued to play. We got out of a couple of big spots. I thought Stokes got out of a big spot. I thought Santi [Santiago Garcia] got out of a big spot. I thought Grayson threw the ball exceptionally well tonight. Overall, good to have a win on a Friday." Oregon and Rutgers jumped into the ninth inning in a tie ballgame, 3-3, with RHP Jaxon Jordan taking the mound for the Ducks. Jordan retired the first two batters he faced before allowing a hit-by-pitch and walk. Jordan, making only his second conference appearance, was relieved as the Ducks called upon RHP Cole Stokes to get them out of the jam. Stokes, in traditional closer fashion, drilled the first batter he saw to load the bases before inducing a weak pop fly to third base, ending the threat. Jacob Walsh began the bottom of the ninth with a leadoff hit-by-pitch before getting forced out on a bunt attempt by Jack Brooks. With the lead runner gone, Brooks took over at first base before Maddox Molony laced a double down the left field line, putting runners on second and third with one out. Rutgers elected to change pitchers, bringing in sidearmer Quinn Berglin. After originally sending Coen Niclai to face the left-handed throwing Joe Mazza, Wasikowski moved to Stinson, who had not gotten into game action this year for Oregon. Stinson, a transfer from Indiana State who hit .295 with 15 home runs, 15 doubles, and 51 RBIs, stepped in the box and took the first pitch for a strike. After working the count to 2-2, Stinson hit a fly ball out to center field, deep enough for Brooks to come home for the game-winning run. "Man, obviously being on the bench for the first half of the season, coming back from that hamstring, I'm just excited to be back in the game. Thought it was a cool opportunity," said Stinson. "I was going up to it, just excited, like, fun, this is cool. This is cool that my first at-bat as an Oregon Duck is a chance to walk it off. And I think when I viewed it like that, the nerves kind of settled." "I mean, that's why he came here. He's a senior, played a lot, has a lot of ABs under his belt," said Walsh on Stinson's at-bat. "And that's kind of the guy you want to go with there, even if it is his first one here." Before the commotion in the ninth, Friday's matchup between Oregon and Rutgers was predominantly a pitching duel. Left-handed starter Grayson Grinsell squared off against right-handed starter Justin Shadek as the two battled back and forth for the better part of seven innings. Grinsell ran into trouble in the third inning, allowing two runs on back-to-back hits, a single from Peyton Bonds and a double from Ty Doucette. With Rutgers up 2-0 early, Grinsell found his rhythm and worked quickly through the middle innings, fanning three batters and only facing one over the minimum. Grinsell worked a fastball topping out at 90 MPH while mixing in a changeup, slider, curveball, and newfound cutter. "I thought he pitched really well. He was in command of the ball, throwing four pitches for strikes," said Wasikowski on Grinsell's performance. "Had a critical pick off on the run and hit or steal attempt by their guy. And he had a critical pick off in that spot, just in command of the game." For Rutgers, Shadek turned in his best performance of the season, throwing five innings of one-run ball, surrendering the lone run to Mason Neville, who clocked a solo home run in the third inning, landing in the Scarlet Knights bullpen in left field. Trailing 2-1, Oregon struck in the sixth inning as Chase Meggers led off the rally with a single to left field before Anson Aroz roped a ball down the third-base foul line, putting runners at second and third with one out. After falling behind 0-2 against Mazza, Walsh stayed through an outside fastball, shooting it through the 5-6 gap and sending both runners in to take a 3-2 lead. "Old at-bat. All that bats when we needed it, didn't try to do too much," said Wasikowski. "And I was proud of Jacob, you know, in the past, maybe he would have been a different player. And credit to Jacob and the coaches that you know, Coach Marder, getting them ready to hit in that situation, and he executed. He came through for us big." Rutgers, as they had all game, responded quickly toward the end of Grinsell's outing. After recording a groundout to start the seventh inning, JD Jones drew a walk before an error by defensive replacement Brooks gave the Scarlet Knights runners on second and third with one out. Grinsell's day was done after 6.1 innings and eight strikeouts. Oregon and Wasikowski turned to Santiago Garcia out of the bullpen, as the hard-throwing lefty struggled with command early. A wild pitch to Bonds brought home the game-tying run before he buckled down and retired the final two batters of the frame. Garcia worked a scoreless eighth inning before handing the ball to Jordan in the ninth. With the victory, Oregon moves to 18-4 and 6-1 in the Big Ten as the season is nearly halfway through. Game two between RHP Collin Clarke (2-0, 2.08) and RHP Landon Mack (1-2, 3.80) begins tomorrow, Saturday, March 22nd, at 2:05 PM.

From the Daily Emerald on how got runners into scoring position in the ninth inning.... "Jacob Walsh was struck by a pitch to get on to start the bottom of the ninth, but Brooks’ sacrifice bunt attempt failed to bring him into scoring position. But a Maddox Molony one-out double brought the winning run to third as Parker Stinson stepped up as a pinch hitter." (And got the sacrifice fly to score!) Safe!

We cannot ignore the extreme drama in the top of the 9th inning, as the Scarlet Knights had BASES LOADED with two outs....and Oregon's big Cole Stokes came in and closed them out. Whew! Cole Stokes Has a Heater!

In other notes...Oregon's catcher Chase Meggers was the only starter who was NOT hitting .300 as he is getting back to form gradually. He was only hitting .167 this year prior to this game, although he hasn't played much yet. But last year, he was our best batter at .316 and you knew he would get back to old form as the Duck pitchers have done. Today he went 3-4 as his rounding back into it--at the right time!

Ducks WIN 4-3 in the bottom of the ninth! I cannot believe that Coach Waz put Parker Stinson in the game for his first at-bat while at Oregon. He is a big-kid, and had a great batting reputation at Indiana State, and Coach Waz stated in an earlier interview the Stinson was the Ducks' best batter in fall baseball until he got hurt. Well...in his first at-bat he hits a sacrifice fly to center field to score the runner from third!

Nail-biter time! Still 3-3 after eight innings, and Oregon is bringing Jaxon Jordan to the mound, who has had a very good year thus far in a few relief efforts. C'mon Ducks...Let's pull This OUT!

After seven innings, the score is tied, 3-3 due to wild pitch by Oregon reliever, Santiago Garcia.

3-2 Ducks after six innings. Once the Rutgers hard-throwing pitcher left, we got two runs in an inning off their reliever!

After five innings, it is 2-1 Rutgers, still. Gotta get our bats going!

Gotta love learning from our "Schedule Maven" in South Carolina!

2-1 Rutgers after three innings. Grinsell was getting hit, and the pitcher for the Scarlet Knights is throwing 95 mph in the rain. I thought this would be a fly-ball...

See the game summary at the bottom of the thread! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Our Beloved Diamond-Ducks play at 3:00 PM PST on B1G+, against Rutgers, who at 9-12 doesn't sound impressive, but apparently they have some good pitchers in their bullpen. As you recall we lost a game to Grand Canyon last week, and Rutgers got beat three out of four games in their series with the 'Lopes. On Tuesday of this week, the Scarlett Knights came to Oregon early to play Beavis in Corvallis and lost 7-3. You might recall how Grayson Grinsell had a couple of tough days in the early part of the season, and his ERA was up to nearly 7, but since then has really improved and got his ERA down to 4.56 of which is in striking distance of his ERA last year of 4.08. We now know that the reason Ryan Featherston did so poorly in his first two outings of the season, is because he came back too soon from an injury over the holiday season. He wanted to play badly, and Coach Waz admitted his admiration for that, and wanted to give him a chance. But he got beat up, and we lost one game because of it. His ERA was something crazy, like 19.50 for a while, but with many hitless innings...he has brought it down to 10, and perhaps can bring it down to his average last year of 3.76 eventually. Featherston looks completely different now than the first couple of weekends. I am still amazed at how much Collin Clarke improved between last year, (ERA of 6.41) and this year. (2.08 ERA) There is even talk of him moving up to being a Friday night starter, but I don't know baseball enough to know how important that is, and how much psychological damage that might do to Grinsell? With all the pitchers we have...I forgot about Toby Twist. When recruited two years ago, he was the No. 1 left-handed HS pitcher in California and last year he did well until late in the season when he got a bit injured. His ERA was decent, (4.60) but he had a TON of upside, and Waz hinted that he is getting close to being ready to play as the injury recovery is nearly complete. This is why pitching coach Blake Hawksworth, (Hawk) can pull pitchers immediately if he sees they don't have control today, as he has a TON of options to turn to! BTW...Oregon Baseball at 17-4 is off to the second best start in the entire history of Oregon Baseball. Only 1963 at 19-2 was better at this point... Pretty cool today....Baseball from 3:00 to 6:00, and then Mens Basketball at 7:10 PM! And boy...it is cold in Eugene, with very gray skies...not what I'd expect for the first day of spring! Toby Twist is a Big Guy...

Well, this gets to my long-held contention that conference tournaments are a crock. You play 20 conference games in basketball to have the champion declared from a couple of games at the end? Ditto for baseball, only it is 30 conference games...and then decide the champion on a couple of games over a couple of days? Now they want to do the same with football, and it is stupid-as-hell, IMHO.

I completely agree, and did not understand that for years--that you cannot apply the same expectations from football to baseball. That is why when so many were concerned about our losses to Toledo and Rhode Island...I chalked it to "that's Baseball!" In the past two years that we went to the Super-Regionals and finished No. 12 in the nation both years....we lost games to Portland, Sacramento State....and Niagara! And Niagara was at home! I agree with you, but had to laugh at the Huskies at any opportunity... When is this OVER?

This video is incredible about what is happening at Oregon Baseball. Let me set the stage....this is Ian Umlandt from Sherwood Oregon, who is having an incredible year thus far, (An unbelievable ERA of 1.19) and they are discussing an Oregon pitcher who has blown up in Collin Clarke. Last year Clarke was less than remarkable with an ERA of 6.41 and now he is at 2.08 ERA? They are also discussing the new pitching coach, Blake Hawksworth, who clearly has coached and developed them extremely well. You will learn a ton from this...

And the Huskies won a series from Nebraska recently?

Damn right, Duck-Brother.

Clemson losing to McNeese State makes me laugh, like Oregon State losing to LAMAR. Whoops! I forgot the loss to Ball State... But Beavis Took Action...

You know...I am not very worried at the loss of Pharma revenue at all--even if it happened in future years. Why? Because this is FOOTBALL, where there are TONS of products and services that fit the consumer profile watching the games. They COULD just sell more Beer Commercials..

They don't want to lose the revenue from Championship week, thus the gyrations. I think it is going too far, and hurts what has been established from a very long regular season. Your thoughts about the metrics--I completely agree with. In the end...the schools will need to be willing to give up the Championship week revenue to retain the integrity of the season, IMHO.

I can't share it, but The Athletic put out an article detailing portal activity, and two things stood out to me. First, that just over 200 players who transferred out of Power-4 programs remain unsigned, or 17% of the total. Not even being signed to Group of 6, FCS, D2, etc.? Quite a risk for players to give up a scholarship! Second, when looking at the metrics of players transferring in with the most starting time experience....Our Beloved Ducks are in the top four of all schools, and that does not surprise me. Dano is looking for proven talent to plug openings, otherwise we use what we recruited years ago. "If gaining starting experience is more your thing, these four programs led the way in net career starts added: Arizona, Missouri, Oregon and Indiana." Or another metric...the Ducks are still in the top four..."If you go by which programs signed the most top-100 players (per 247Sports), Miami (eight), LSU (seven), Texas Tech (six), Oregon (five), Ole Miss (four), North Carolina (four) and Texas A&M (four) were the biggest winners." Makhi Hughes

I still often think about how...this might be part of Lanning's learning curve as a young coach who doesn't just want to be successful....he wants a 'Natty. That so difficult with all the great programs out there, and you need some luck with injuries. Or catch Chip Kelly on his Michigan day, and not his Oregon day. Lanning is learning pretty well, as the number of losses for each of his three years was three losses, (10-3) then two losses, (12-2) to one loss. (13-1) That is a pretty good trendline! We'll get there...