The Ducks (45-6, 17-3 Big Ten) had confidence rolling into Friday’s 6-4 loss to Michigan State as the winners of five straight games and surging to the No. 3 ranking nationally – which matched the best in the Melyssa Lomabrdi era.
They had the atmosphere, a packed Jane Sanders Stadium revved up after former Duck Hanna Delgado’s first pitch to open the last home series of the regular season.
Most of all, they had a plan: give the ball to Lyndsey Grein, back her up with a rested bullpen and try to strike for a quick win in game one of the series.
The only problem: they didn’t have enough of a response to the Michigan State Spartans’ (16-27, 6-14 Big Ten) six-run outburst in the second inning.
Grein gave up four earned runs while recording just four outs in a disastrous start complete with three errors and four walks.
“We got behind a little bit and shot ourselves in the foot,” Lombardi said. “They took advantage of that.”
“We squandered opportunities,” Lombardi said. “We got down, which I get that, but there’s a lot of game left and we had opportunities that we didn’t take advantage of.”
Very little went Oregon’s way on Friday.
12 different Spartans came to the plate in the second. Kaelin Clark’s leadoff homer helped spark the inning before Sydney Doloszycki’s three-run double broke the game open.
Making matters worse, Oregon’s defense did its pitching no favors — Paige Sinicki bobbled a grounder and Rylee McCoy dropped a routine throw.
“That’s not us,” Lombardi said. “That’s not us at all.”
Elise Sokolsky entered in relief and surrendered two more runs, leaving the Jane mostly silent, save Michigan State’s fan section.
The Ducks gave fans in attendance something to cheer about in the third when Kedre Luschar lined a two-RBI single. Then, Oregon tallied two more in the fifth with the help of another Luschar single and a triple from Sinicki.
“I do like the fight,” Lombardi said. “We just dug ourselves a hole.”
Luschar was 2-4 with three RBI’s and Sokolsky went the rest of the way, finishing with a line of 5.2 innings pitched and just one earned run.
“I thought she did great. After that she was really efficient, she got quick outs, a lot of shutdown innings,” Lombardi said of Sokolsky. “She did everything we could ask her to do.”
But it wasn’t enough.
Michigan State played well enough to win, and Oregon, time and time again, shot itself in the foot.
The Ducks battled back and had a chance to tie or take the lead down to two with the bases loaded and no one out in the sixth, but three straight outs ended the rally.
“We didn’t do enough to win a game,” Lombardi said. “Tomorrow we will bounce back.”
Game two of the series is set for 2 p.m. Saturday. With a win, Oregon can clinch a share of the Big Ten regular season title.
“These guys know… we know what the road looks like, we know what the standings look like,” Lombardi said. “We need to play better, a full seven innings better than we did today.”
The post Sloppy second inning spells disaster for No. 3 Oregon in 6-4 loss to Michigan State appeared first on Daily Emerald.