No. 11 Oregon baseball landed in SEC territory on Tuesday in wake of a four-game road trip against two ranked opponents in No. 23 Alabama (10-2) and No. 24 Mississippi State (9-3-1).
“Both of those are going to be fun environments, challenging environments,” Oregon head coach George Horton said. “SEC baseball’s on par with any of the conferences in the country.”
The Ducks (8-2) will play the Crimson Tide on Thursday at 4:30 p.m. PST for a single game visit before an hour and a half bus ride northwest to Starkville, Mississippi to face the Bulldogs for a weekend series.
“They’ll be some negative stuff coming out of the stands, make no mistake about it,” Horton said of the environment the team will be playing in. “The fans are passionate.”
Horton didn’t announce his Thursday night starting pitcher after the Ducks’ win over UCSB on Sunday. But in the athletic department’s weekly game notes it listed freshman Kyle Robeniol as the man who’ll get the rock in Tuscaloosa. The lefty (1-1, 3.12 ERA) pitched 5.0 innings against San Diego State in relief, his longest outing to date, and allowed just one run.
Alabama is expected to start southpaw Jon Keller (1-0, 1.35 ERA), a senior making his second start of the season. Offensively, like the Ducks, the Crimson Tide don’t strike fear into opposing arms. Their .253 team batting average accompanies a meager .339 slugging percentage and a strikeout rate of over 25 percent.
Against Mississippi State, Oregon will start Cole Irvin (2-0, 0.82), Matt Krook (0-0, 1.59 ERA) and David Peterson (2-0, 0.45 ERA) in consecutive days. Combined, the three lefties total a 0.92 ERA. Both Krook and Peterson set career-high strikeout totals last weekend, 12 and 13, respectively. Peterson’s last outing shined brightest of the three and was worthy of Baseball America’s Louisville Slugger Player of the Week honor.
As a pitching staff, the Ducks travel with a 1.61 ERA and 111 strikeouts in 95.0 innings.
The Bulldogs, unlike the Ducks and Crimson Tide, have found their groove early in the season and feature six hitters with a batting average over .300 (min. 20 at-bats) to total a .317 team clip. To compare, Oregon catcher Tim Susnara is the only Duck hitting over .300.
Junior Jack Kruger, who played with Oregon his freshman season, leads the Bulldogs with a .479 average with three home runs and nine doubles (.854 slugging percentage).
Mississippi State’s expected starters are Dakota Hudson (1-1, 1.50 ERA), Austin Sexton (1-0, 4.91 ERA) and Daniel Brown (1-0, 3.95 ERA). Unlike Sexton and Brown, Hudson is a swing and miss pitcher with 23 punch outs in 18.0 innings. That said, Hudson has struggled with keeping runners off the bases with 10 walks and 12 hits, an average of 1.22 baserunners per innings.
Friday marks the first visit to Starkville for Horton, who likened the challenge of an expected hostile environment, a talented opponent and good barbecue.
“All of those kinds of challenges are good,” Horton said. “If you’re a competitor you look forward to going to places like that to see what you’re made of.”
Mississippi State’s series is the first leg of a home-and-home arrangement. Horton informed media that the Bulldogs will visit PK Park next season.