Coach Horton Talks To A Pitcher
After struggling to put together consecutive hits earlier in the year, Oregon’s offensive stock has been rising for the past four weeks or so. On Saturday night, Scott Heineman and the previously “nerfed” Oregon bats pummeled the Cal pitching staff to the tune of four homeruns, to give the #16 Ducks a 10-4 win.
After pushing across five runs in the first inning, the launching pad in Berkley opened up in the second inning when Brett Thomas led off the inning with a bomb to right, and Scott Heineman followed him up with a two run shot later in the inning to give Oregon a commanding 8-0 lead.
Cole Irvin took the early lead in stride, picking up his seventh win in a decent start. The star freshman allowed four runs on seven hits in his five innings pitched, which is an unusual stat line for Irvin, but it was enough to get another win.
After really breaking things open early on, the Duck bats went quiet during the middle innings. That usually isn’t a good thing in a very competitive conference like the Pac-12, but it’s hard to complain with eight runs in two innings. The final two runs came in the final two innings, as Ryon Healy and Scott Heineman launched solo homeruns to put a bow on the explosive outing for the Duck sluggers. With two big flys on the night, Heineman became the first Duck to accomplish the task since Aaron Jones did so last season against UCLA. The outfielder finished the night going 3-5, three runs scored, four RBIs, and added a double to his line to bring his slugging percentage on the night to a whopping 2.000.
Ryon Healy earned the second star of the night, going 2-4 with two RBIs and three runs scored. Brett Thomas, Connor Hofmann, and Mitchell Tolman each had multi-hit days as well.
The Ducks will try for another sweep of a conference opponent on Sunday afternoon at 1 pm PDT.
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Josh is a College Football enthusiast from sunny Southern California. He has written for several self-operated prep sports blogs, as well as multiple SB Nation sites. In High School, Josh played football for four years, and helped create and operate the team’s no-huddle system. Most of Josh’s football knowledge branches from watching College Football his entire life, and is backed up by his first hand experience in both option and spread offenses. Above all, though, he is a proud student at the University of Oregon.
@joshschlichter