The Diamond Ducks are one of five teams that are all very close in the conference, and can beat each other on a given day.  Oregon State is certainly ahead of us, but Oregon can battle for the runner-up spot in the conference to get a good NCAA seeding later.

 

USC started out slow, but has really come on by sweeping Washington last weekend, and winning both games with Oregon State, the last one by a 17-4 score.  (Their third game was rained out) Thus the Ducks have their hands full this weekend, but they are at home and CAN DO IT!

 

Right now we are third based on overall percentages, but I look at the number of losses for comparison.  We are second in that category, of which will rise to the top as the season progresses if we keep winning.  This is a great opportunity to create some space with a team that is right there with us...

 

Tasty Tidbits:

 

--Oregon has opened the conference season winning all four series for the first time ever, and are going for a fifth!

 

--When looking at the batting averages, you will see that the Ducks have seven players over .300 with two knocking on the door!

 

--Oregon has a deeper pitching staff than last year, but has yet for all the newbies to settle.  ERAs are not great, but fortunately are due to the occasional bad game that hurts their average, such as Michael Freund's one inning disaster of giving up seven runs on Tuesday.  His ERA was decent prior to that, and he was 3-0 at the time.  He will do better the majority of the time.

 

--The Ducks still have four pitchers who won games for us last year, who must be injured, as we have not seen them in action yet in 2024.  Others such as Matthew Grabmann and Turner Spoljaric, and only now starting to contribute after a rocky start or two.