After using seven pitchers in yesterday’s 14 inning duel, No. 11 Oregon baseball needed starting pitcher David Peterson to guzzle crucial innings on Sunday against UCSB to preserve a thin bullpen. Peterson wound up and delivered.
“We were a little thin,” head coach George Horton said. “We needed David to get deep into the game and he was real good again.”
The Denver native pitched seven innings and struck out a career-high 13 Gauchos at PK Park leading Oregon (8-1) to a 3-1 win to claim the series. Peterson’s season earned run average dropped to 0.45 on the season.
“Yesterday really fired me up with the 13 scoreless innings that we put up as a staff,” said Peterson. “It’s incredible to have guys starting with you and then in the pen, as well to be able to do that 13 times in a row. And it didn’t go our way and got me that much more fired up.”
His masterpiece didn’t shine from the get-go, though. The Gauchos’ Andrew Calica stood for a four-pitch walk in the game’s first at-bat before Peterson misaimed a pickoff attempt that advanced Calica around to third. Two batters later, Grover Dempsey singled Calica home for an early UCSB lead.
“The dugout kind of got quiet,” Horton said. “That kind of shows you how not confident we are offensively right now. The deflation of one run in the first.”
But that’s all the runs UCSB could muster in the rubber match series finale.
The Ducks responded immediately in the bottom of the first through a similar formula. Leadoff man Austin Grebeck walked and took second on a failed pickoff attempt by UCSB starter Joe Record. Two batters later, Jakob Goldfarb singled Grebeck in to tie the game.
“I screwed up in the first inning, I walked the first guy on four pitches, which is unacceptable; I threw a pick away, which is unacceptable” Peterson said. “Then the offense picked me up. Today, they had my back and the whole bullpen’s back.”
But Oregon wasn’t finished. The following at-bat, Goldfarb reached third base on Phil Craig-St.Louis’ single. With Goldfarb on third and Steven Packard at the plate, the pair successfully maneuvered a safety squeeze that gave Oregon a 2-1 lead after the first inning.
“That was Duck baseball right there in my opinion,” Packard said. “Moving guys over, safety, getting guys in… I love it. It’s what we practice every day.”
In the third, catcher Tim Susnara sparked a two-out rally with a single. UCSB third basemen JJ Muno then committed two separate errors – one a fielding error and the other a throwing error – that catalyzed Susnara to score.
Relievers Matt Mercer and Stephen Nogosek picked up where Peterson left off to close the final two innings. Nogosek earned his fourth save of the season by striking out two of the three batters in the ninth. Peterson claimed his second win of the season.
The Ducks travel to SEC territory on Tuesday for a Thursday night game against Alabama and a three-game series versus Mississippi State beginning Friday at 4:35 p.m. PST in Starkville, Mississippi.
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