Diamond Ducks Days Dwindle in 8-6 Loss to Michigan

[Charles Fischer]

The Oregon Baseball team (35-23) was given a No. 2 seed for the Louisville Regional, and will play No. 3 Seed Michigan (32-26) while No. 1 Seed Louisville (38-18-1) will play No. 4 seed Southeast Missouri State. (37-20) Louisville is ranked No. 6 in the nation on the Coaches Poll, and No. 7 in the nation in the D1 Baseball poll.  Oregon is ranked at No. 31 in the Coaches Poll.

 

Strength-of-Schedule: Louisville No. 21, and Oregon No. 6

RPI:  Louisville No. 17 and Oregon No. 28

 

C'mon Ducks!  Let's get hot again!

 

 

[Guest Axel]

This is a good tournament draw for the Diamond Ducks. Michigan was the number 5 seed in the Big Ten Tournament, which they won, but the Ducks can certainly beat the Wolverines, as well as the other two teams in the regional--Louisville and Southeast Missouri State. Louisville is the number 12 national seed. Oregon State is the number 3 national seed; Stanford is number 2. 

 

We'll lampoon those woeful Michigan Wolverines later in the week. I've been to Ann Arbor, which weirdly gets a lot of favorable press, I presume from people who have never been west of Indiana or east of Ohio. Ann Arbor has all the backwater charm of a Walla Walla with the dreadful weather of a Chicago. Nobody outside of a mental ward has "must see Ann Arbor" on his or her bucket list. 

 

I've also been to Louisville, the Ann Arbor of Kentucky. Louisville's tourist sites--if you can call them that--are Churchill Downs on one day of the year and bourbon distilleries on the other 364 1/4 days. 

[Charles Fischer]

Ducks open with Michigan in Louisville Regional - University of Oregon Athletics

GODUCKS.COM

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First pitch on Friday is 4 p.m. (PT)

 

[Badwater]

Thank God they're not playing at 7 am PT.

[savagefund]

College baseball playoffs.  Love this time of year.

 

Good luck to the Ducks.

[Charles Fischer]

It was just reported that the game will NOT be on ESPN+, but on ESPNU instead--cool!

[Guest Axel]

And so the Diamond Ducks are off to Louisville—yes, Louisville of all places in this wide, wide world--to play the baseball against Mee-chigan from the Big 10, the goofiest name of a conference in sports history. We all remember the Pac-8 and the Pac-10; apparently the screwballs who live back there aren’t too good with their arithmetic.

 

But I digress.

 

Our Beloved Ducks of the Baseball Diamond, swept away in two games from the most useless conference tournament in sports history, get a new start on Friday against the University of Michigan, whose fight song claims that they are the “champions of the West,” which means that the screwballs who live back there aren’t too good with their geography either, and the fact that I haven’t been able to end this sentence in a reasonable amount of words suggests that sometimes I’m not too good with English.

 

But I digress again, and you and I are both tired of digression, so let’s go with this…

 

“The Top 10 things we all wish the state of Michigan had kept secret”

 

10.  The entire dopey place. We already have a lake named Michigan. Isn’t that enough?

 

  9.  Corn Flakes—headed to your breakfast table from a scary-sounding city called Battle Creek. “No, Ma, for the ten-thousandth time, I don’t want any freaking Corn Flakes!” Give me liver or anchovies, anything but those boring Corn Flakes. Yecch!

 

  8.  The Mackinac Bridge. Nobody can pronounce it, nobody knows where it is, and it’s too damn long to drive over.

 

  7.  The Edmund Fitzgerald. And please stop playing that annoying Gordon Lightfoot song. It wasn’t exactly the Titanic going down.

 

  6.  Bill Laimbeer. Yeah, we still remember that shiftless clod. We wish we didn’t.

 

  5.  The Lions. Thanks, but we already have the Huskies to laugh at. That’s way, way more fun.

 

  4.  Flint. If you’ve never been to Flint, hit your knees right now and praise the saints.

 

  3.  Eminem. "Yo, I hope you can hear me, Slim Shady, wherever you are. Just stay out, far out, on that Eight Mile Road."

 

  2.  Detroit. And this, coming from a longtime Tigers fan. Mogadishu is dangerous. I’ll let you know when I find the proper adjective for Detroit.

 

  1.  Ann Arbor. The second-most overrated college town, lagging only behind that miserable, fetid cesspit on Lake Washington, occasionally called Seattle.

[ICamel]

Christian Ciuffetelli pitching for our Ducks against Michigan.

 

[ICamel]

Three up, three down for Michigan in the top of the first inning.

[ICamel]

 

 

 

Brennan Milone with a two out double, but is stranded at second base.

Michigan 0 - Oregon 0 after one inning.

[ICamel]

Michigan strikes first in the scoring column with a bases loaded infield fielders choice scoring the first run of the game.

[ICamel]

Ducks get two runners on base with one out, but a double play ends the second inning.

[ICamel]

Ciuffetelli hit a batter with two out, and the next hitter hit a ball over the right field fence to increase Michigans lead to 3-0.

 

RJ Gordon relieves Ciuffetelli.

 

2 Runs, 2 Hits, 0 Errors, 1 LOB middle of third inning.

[ICamel]

Ducks waste another two out double.

 

0 Runs, 1 Hit, 0 Errors, 1 LOB

 

Michigan 3 - Oregon 0 after 3 innings.

[ICamel]

Wolverines got a 1 out single in the top of the 4th inning.

 

0 Runs, 1 Hit, 0 Errors, 1 LOB

[ICamel]

Ducks score 2 runs in the bottom of the fourth inning on an RBI double by Anthony Hall. Hall advanced to third on a throwing error and scored on a wild pitch.

 

2 Runs, 1 Hit, 1 Error, 0 LOB

 

Michigan 3 - Oregon 2 after four innings.

[ICamel]

Michigan scores two answering runs on a one out double and another home run by their catcher Obertop. Another run is scored on a single, walk, and single.

 

3 Runs, 4 Hits, 0 Errors, 2 LOB

[ICamel]

Last of the 5th inning for Oregon, Gavin Grant with a leadoff walk is driven home with a double to the wall in right/center by Brennan Milone.

 

1 Run, 1 Hit, 0 Errors, 1 LOB

 

Michigan 6 - Oregon 3 at the end of five.

[ICamel]

Caleb Sloan called on to pitch against the Wolverines in the top of the 6th inning.

 

0 Runs, 0 Hits, 0 Errors, 1 LOB in the top of the 6th inning for Michigan.

[ICamel]

Josh Kasevich with a leadoff single into right field. Josiah Cromwick hit an RBI double into the left/center gap scoring Kasevich.

 

 

A wild pitch moves Cromwick to third base. Gavin Grant draws a two out walk to put Ducks at third and first base. Grant steals second base to put two runners in scoring position, but a line drive is caught off the bat of Tanner Smith to end the sixth inning.

 

1 Run, 2 Hits, 0 Errors, 2 LOB

 

Michigan 6 - Oregon 4 through six innings.

[ICamel]

Rio Britton is called on to pitch with a runner at first in top of the 7th inning, and walks his first batter faced on four straight pitches. A sacrifice bunt moves the runners to third and second bases.

 

Ducks get out of the inning without allowing any runs for Michigan.

 

0 Runs, 0 Hit, 0 Errors, 2 LOB

[ICamel]

Ducks have scored runs in each of the last three innings. Brennan Milone hits a solo RBI tater over the fence in left field to close the Ducks within a run.

 

 

Drew Cowley singled up the middle but gets erased trying to steal second base, which is unfortunate as Josh Kasevich then doubled to right/center that could have tied the game.

 

Anthony Hall drives in the tying run with a double down the right field line!

 

 

2 Runs, 4 Hits, 0 Errors, 1 LOB

 

Michigan 6 - Ducks 6 after seven.

[ICamel]

Rio Britton gave up an "excuse me" swing that put the leadoff runner on board via a dribbler single to second base.

 

Ducks bring in Logan Mercado to pitch. And the third 2-run homer for Michigan puts them back in the lead. 

 

2 Runs, 2 Hits, 0 Errors, 0 LOB

[ICamel]

Ducks go out meekly in the eighth inning.

 

0 Runs, 0 Hits, 0 Errors, 0 LOB

 

Michigan 8 - Oregon 6

[ICamel]

Logan Mercado pitches out of a jam with two runners on base to keep Oregon within two runs headed to the last of the 9th inning.

 

0 Runs, 1 Hit, 0 Errors, 2 LOB

[ICamel]

Three up, three down for Oregon in the bottom of the 9th inning.

 

0 Runs, 0 Hits, 0 Errors, 0 LOB

 

8-6 win for Michigan.

 

Ducks to face SE Missouri State in the losers bracket game Saturday @ 9AM Pacific Time. Win or go home...............for the season!

[Guest Axel]

I have a better chance of rounding up some guys in the neighborhood and getting to Omaha than our dismal Diamond Ducks. 

 

Oregon is plagued by lousy pitching, timely unhitting, dopey baserunning, and less-than-stellar defense. Can our first baseman please throw a ball to second base without bouncing it? Yes, Jacob Walsh, that means you.

 

In the eighth inning, when the Ducks desperately needed baserunners, the first two batters--Josiah Cromwick and Gavin Grant--each swung at ball four and hit weak popups. 

 

The Ducks will need to defeat Southeast Missouri State tomorrow and then beat either Louisville or Michigan twice to win this regional. That could happen. The moon could also wobble out of orbit and plunge into the Fern Ridge Reservoir later tonight.

[Just Ducky]

When your first 3 hitters get one hit and score no runs, well that is not a recipe for success.