Jeff Gold pitched all but one inning for the Oregon baseball team (31-12, 10-7 Pac-12) Saturday night and was in line for his 10th win of the season against Oregon State (30-8, 13-4). But Garrett Cleavinger couldn’t preserve Oregon’s 1-0 lead, giving up four runs in the bottom of the eighth. The Beavers held on to win 4-2 and secure the series victory on a rainy night in Corvallis, Ore.
Cleavinger issued a walk, single and walk to the first three batters in the eighth to bring up Dylan Davis. Davis crushed the first pitch to right center field, driving in two runs on a double to give Oregon State a 2-1 lead. Cleavinger retired the next two batters on strikeouts, bringing up Caleb Hamilton. The third baseman lightly lined a 1-1 pitch to center field just in front of the diving Nick Catalano, scoring two more runs.
When Cleavinger recorded the last out on a pop-up back to him, he spiked the ball and yelled at the Oregon State bench.
“It happens sometimes in the rivalry part of it and the emotions run high, but it still doesn’t make it Okay,” Oregon head coach George Horton said postgame. “You’ve gotta be disciplined enough not to do that kind of crummy stuff. The team that played better won tonight and we’ve gotta live with those things sometimes.”
Gold, who was unavailable to talk with the media after the game, threw seven scoreless innings on 94 pitches, allowing four hits and two walks while striking out five.
“(Gold) was going to come out either way but he told me he was out of gas after that last pitch,” Horton said.
The Ducks singled and bunted to lead off the first two innings. Nothing materialized in the first, but the Ducks provided a stressful inning for Andrew Moore in the second.
Kyle Garlick led off the inning with a single to center field and Steven Packard bunted him to second. Austin Grebeck then walked to bring up Shaun Chase, who delivered an RBI single to center to give the Ducks an early 1-0 lead.
In the bottom of the second with the rain coming down hard, Gold wound up for a pitch to Michael Howard but slightly slipped, causing a brief delay. Gold scraped the wet dirt out of his cleats and the maintenance crew poured some dirt on the mound. Gold did this with his cleats multiple times during the game, to the chagrin of many fans. When Gold cleared the dirt out of his cleat in the bottom of the sixth, a fan yelled, “Get some Adidas.”
“I don’t know why they’d get on a guy who’s trying to clean mud off his cleats,” Horton said. “That’s kind of silly, but they’re doing everything they can to disrupt him and I think that’s the kind of mental toughness I’m talking about.
“That’s how I’d like to see our other guys respond. It was a phenomenal performance by Jeff Gold.”
Moore also pitched well, going into the top of the ninth despite a high pitch count. But after giving up a leadoff single to Packard, Moore was replaced by Zack Reser. Moore finished with 121 pitches, giving up two runs (both earned) on four hits and three walks while striking out seven.
Oregon strung a hit, two walks and a hit batsman (Payne) together against Reser and Scott Schultz to score a run in the ninth, but Schultz retired Tyler Baumgartner (0-for-5, two strikeouts) to end the game.
“It’s probably as disappointed I’ve been in a Duck baseball team in the last two and a half years,” Horton said. “Not because of the loss or where we’re at — the behavioral part of it. They’ve shown bad behavior and weakness.”
Horton said, in addition to Cleavinger’s antics in the eighth, several batters were “slamming things around” in the dugout after bad at-bats.
“Hopefully, we’ll chose a different route of how to show competitive toughness and mental toughness tomorrow and for the rest of the year,” Horton said.
The Ducks will look to avoid the sweep Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m. Horton said after Saturday’s game that Trent Paddon (3.03 earned-run average) will get the start, facing Jace Fry (1.95 ERA) at Goss Stadium.
Noteworthy:
– Pat Casey earned his 700th win as the head coach for Oregon State Saturday night. Casey has coached at Oregon State since 1995.
– Cleavinger’s streak of 14 scoreless appearances (13.2 innings) was snapped Saturday night.
– In the top of the second inning with Chase at second and Grebeck at third, Mark Karaviotis attempted a squeeze bunt but whiffed on the pitch, seemingly hanging Grebeck out to dry. Grebeck made his way back to third base but Chase was also standing on the bag, meaning catcher Logan Ice only had to tag Grebeck to get the out. But before Ice applied the tag, Chase started running back to second. Ice looked confused as he watched Chase run back and nearly tagged out Grebeck, who momentarily took his foot off the bag. In the end, both runners remained at their bases with the box score only revealing a strike to Karaviotis on the play.
Follow Victor Flores on Twitter @vflores415