Spring Break
Stanford leaves Beaver baseball bummed out
After Friday's OSU win, Stanford gets revenge with a 16-4 win Saturday afternoon
Raymond Wicks
The Daily Barometer
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A gorgeous Saturday afternoon at Goss Stadium soon turned gloomy for Oregon State baseball fans -- 1,852, to be exact -- as starting pitcher Dallas Buck was shelled by No. 2 Stanford (25-5, 4-2 Pacific-10) for seven runs in the first inning.
"I don't have an answer for Dallas' start," OSU coach Pat Casey said. "He's been very good in his last two outings and we expected him to give us a good start, and it didn't happen."
In the bottom of the first, Beaver outfielder Chris Campos blasted a three-run homer, making the score 7-3 after one. The junior later hit a solo home run in the fifth, giving Stanford a 12-4 lead, but four runs were all OSU (19-11, 4-5 Pac-10) would bring across for the rest of the contest.
The two homers were Campos' fifth and sixth of the season.
After his first homer on Saturday, Campos reached base in seven straight plate appearances; he went 8-for-12 in the series with three home runs, one double and seven runs batted in.
A total of seven round-trippers were recorded in the game, with five of them coming from the Cardinal side of the plate. Once Stanford's hitters had opened the floodgates, it was hard for anyone on the Beavers' pitching staff to shut them down.
Cardinal catcher Donny Lucy went 3-for-4 with two RBI, and third baseman Jonny Ash went 4-for-6 with an RBI of his own in the 16-4 thumping of OSU on Saturday.
"They had 17 hits today, and you could [attribute] that to they are very good, but also where we threw the baseball," Casey said. "I think Stanford, if they're ranked No. 1 in the country, is very worthy of it."
OSU pitching wasn't at its best, and its hitting was equally disappointing, with 12 batters striking out in the game, including 10 who watched the third strike go by.
"It really didn't matter what was happening on the mound," Casey said. "What mattered was what was happening at the plate and we just flat quit competing and that pains me, because that [is] what I feel we build our character on and I didn't see that competitiveness at all."
Oregon State also lost on Thursday, after the Beavers saw their three-run lead slip away in the final two innings.
Outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury, a .407 hitter, was hurt attempting a catch in the top of the first inning during Thursday's game and did not play the rest of the series.
"We've been in this situation before and we've been able to handle it, but it's hard when you got a couple injuries," Casey said. "We played very poorly today and that's disappointing because I thought we could've had a great weekend with the crowd and I hope it's not a reflection of our confidence."
However, OSU did come away with a victory on Friday, holding on to win 5-4 with senior lefthander Jake Postlewait picking up his seventh win of the season.
Freshman outfielder Mike Lissman homered twice and drove in four runs for the Beavers in their win.
Saturday's crowd was the largest for a Beaver home game since the 1999 renovation of OSU's ballpark.
The Beavers now go on the road for a non-league series at Washington with games today at 6:30 p.m. and Tuesday at 1:30 p.m.
Raymond Wicks is a sports writer for The Daily Barometer. He can be reached at baro.sports@studentmedia.orst.edu.
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