Oregon baseball played their final game of the Live Like Lou Las Vegas College Baseball Classic today vs. Vanderbilt. Vandy is #22 in the Baseball Coaches Poll, and the Ducks got the win, buoyed by a fantastic start from R-So. RHP Cal Scolari.
Scolari took the mound for the Ducks, against Nate Taylor for the Commodores.
Maddox Molony put Oregon on the board first with a solo home run in the bottom of the second inning.
Nate Taylor was throwing solid strikes and getting ahead in the count, and Ducks batters adjusted by swinging sooner in the pitch count. In the 3rd, Angel Laya swung at the first pitch thrown to him for a single. A sacrifice bunt took him to second base, and then Ryan Cooney swung on pitch number three for an RBI double.
Jax Gimenez hit the first pitch sent his way, and brought Cooney home. The Ducks ended the frame up 3-0.
Meanwhile, Scolari was pitching a great game and keeping Vandy off the bases.
The Commodores’ Taylor stayed in the game, and Oregon kept hitting on him. In the fourth, it was Burke-Lee Mabeus that sent a solo shot over the left field fence.
Curiously, Vanderbilt kept Taylor on the mound into the fifth inning. This time Oregon went down in order, and the score remained 4-0 through five innings.
With a little help from the defense, Cal Scolari held Vandy scoreless in six innings, and he ended an excellent start against a very good SEC team.
Oregon’s bats were not done with Taylor, and the Ducks sent a couple of solo shots over the wall with their first two batters in the bottom of the sixth inning. The first one saw Dominic Hellman get in on the action:
And the second was a drive by Gabe Miranda.
Toby Twist took the mound in the seventh inning, and while Vandy was quiet in that inning, they took it to Twist in the eighth inning with two outs.
Luke Morgan came in for relief and immediately gave up another homer.
Morgan finally got the third out, and Oregon nursed a tenuous 6-4 lead going in the bottom of the eighth inning. The Ducks got runners on second and third but could do nothing with it, and we still had a two-run lead going into the ninth inning.
Just three outs. That’s all that the Ducks needed.
Morgan walked Vandy’s leadoff batter, and that was it for his outing. Lefty Blake Crawford came to the hill to see if he could put the Commodores away and go home with a win. He walked the batter and Vandy now had two on base with no outs.
Crawford was replaced with righty Devin Bell. After Mabeus caught a foul ball for the first out, Bell loaded the bases with another walk. Fortunately, this game did not follow yesterday’s trend. Bell got a strikeout, and then the final Vandy out came from a popup fly to right field, and the Ducks escaped with a 6-4 win.
The Duck will hurry home for a match at PK park against Oregon State, and then travel to West Lafayette for a Big Ten weekend series against the Purdue Boilermakers.
