With the 2026 Softball season getting underway last weekend the Baseball season is now also upon us as the Ducks will take on George Mason this weekend at PK Park for a 3 game weekend series to start 2026. The Ducks will have another tune-up series the following weekend when Youngstown State comes to Eugene before they head to Nevada for the 2026 Live Like Lou Las Vegas College Baseball Classic where they will face off against the likes of Arizona, UC Irvine, and Vanderbilt. The full baseball schedule
can be found here. But now let’s get into the team and who will be the players leading the Ducks in 2026. All stats on returning Ducks can be found here or at Baseball reference.
Projected Pitching Rotation
Starting pitching is hard to come by in College Baseball so when 2 of your 3 starters that had Sub 3.50 ERAs get drafted it puts a premium position at an even higher premium. To replenish the losses of Grayson Grinsell and Jason Reitz Oregon went to the transfer portal and acquired two starters from the West Coast Conference. Cal Scolari from San Diego and Miles Gosztola from Gonzaga. Returning starter Collin Clarke and Scolari will presumably be the 1-2 starters for the Ducks in 2026 as they are the only Pitchers on the team with any starting experience and a sub 4.60 ERA in 2025. The 3rd starter will come down to a battle between Gosztola and returner Will Sanford. Both guys had rough 2025 seasons but now have had the entire offseason to develop and, hopefully for Oregon, turn the corner and turn into quality starters
Friday Starter: Collin Clarke JR RHP – 2025 ERA: 4.59 in 13 Starts
Saturday Starter: Cal Scolari RS SO RHP – 2025 ERA: 4.22 in in 15 starts
Sunday Starter:
Miles Gosztola JR LHP – 2025 ERA: 6.40 in 15 starts
OR
Will Sanford SO RHP – 2025 ERA: 6.39 in 11 Starts
The starting rotation is definitely a question mark coming into the season as not a single projected started had a ERA below 4 last season. As Oregon baseball has taught us so many times, a potent lineup can only take a team so far, to make it to the College World Series you need multiple high level starters.
Before setting their sites on even making it to Omaha the Ducks need to focus on winning the B1G. In order to do that Clarke and Scolari will both need to take the next step to become reliable high end pitchers with ERA’s sub 3.50 just as Grinsell and Reitz did last year. If either Gosztola or Sanford can take the next step in their development to become a quality college starter with an ERA sub 4.50 then the possibility does exist for the Ducks to have a pretty formidable 3 man rotation for weekend series in the B1G. That is asking for a lot of happy answers to question marks at this moment though and it isn’t a hyperbole to say that it will determine the success of the 2026 campaign for the Ducks.
Projected Bullpen
The big name in the bullpen to know is Ian Umlandt as he is the only returner from the bullpen that pitched more than 21 innings last year and had a sub 4.00 ERA. Across 60 innings and 18 appearances Umlandt put up a 2.55 ERA. Umlandt also did start 5 times in 2025 meaning that should Oregon not get the needed results from the starters Umlandt could potentially be moved into the starting rotation.
The rest of the bullpen is a true mystery and we really won’t have an idea of who Mark Wasikowski trusts until opening weekend.
Projected Starting Lineup
Now to the fun part. Despite losing the top 3 players by OPS from the 2025 team the Oregon lineup is still stacked and will be the engine that drives this team. It’s headlined by 4 returners all of whom posted an OPS of .910 or better in 2025 in Dominic Hellman (DH), Maddox Molony (SS), Ryan Cooney (2B), and Drew Smith (OF). Add in Burke-Lee Mabeus who put up a very respectable .755 OPS as a true freshmen catcher and 5 out of the 9 batters in this lineup are above average position players in College baseball that well give opposing teams fits in 2026.
The rest of the lineup is a bit of a mystery as Oregon brought in zero position players from the transfer portal in 2026. For me personally this isn’t a huge concern as the Oregon program under coach Wasikowski has shown they are very capable of developing batters and when you already have confidence in more than 1/2 your starting lineup heading into the season the remaining 4 batters should still be above average B1G position players.
Pre-season rankings and Season Outlook
In most pre-season baseball Polls Oregon has been in the 20-30 range nationally. Around the B1G UCLA is seen as a national title contender and not a single other B1G team is garnering any pre-season hype. In what projects as approximately a 4 bid league for the NCAA tournament the conference is UCLA’s to lose and if they do lose to anyone it would be Oregon who is projected as a clear 2nd above the rest of the B1G.
The Oregon baseball program is in a position where qualifying for the NCAA tournament is the expectation and the goal for the regular season should be to put together a regular season resume that puts a Regional final in Eugene in May, which is something the Ducks did last year.
Compared to last year the Ducks have a much strong non-conference schedule with matchups against 3 teams ranked in the preseason d1 poll which is essential now that the team is in the B1G:
- Oregon State (12)
- March 3rd in Eugene
- April 22nd in Corvallis
- Arizona (24) February 27th in Las Vegas
- Vanderbilt (23) March 1 in Las Vegas
These games will be crucial for the Ducks in not only making the NCAA tournament but the seeding for it. As I mentioned above only 1 team in the 18 team B1G is ranked in the pre-season (UCLA) who the Ducks will play in LA the weekend of May 8th-10th.
Other notable weekend series in the B1G will be against the fellow west coast schools with the Ducks travelling to Washington the weekend of May 1st-May 3rd and USC closing out the regular season in Eugene the weekend of May 14th to May 16th
It should be a fun season on the Diamond for Oregon as, at the very least, they should be an exciting team that puts runs on the board. How succesful the season is will come down to the Pitching. Do they get good answers on the rotation questions? Will some bullpen arms emerge to help in tight games? And it all gets started tomorrow.
