Oregon Baseball Wraps Up Long Homestand with Utah This Weekend

PK Park, Eugene Oregon on Media Day. KPNWSports

Oregon has had a good start to the 2014 season, going 14-5 and taking two of three from USC in the opening weekend of Pac-12 play. Onto week number two and the Ducks welcome in Utah for a three game set. The Ducks are already chasing Oregon State in the Conference who just swept Utah on the road last weekend. I don’t know if there is pressure for Coach Horton and his team to do the same in Eugene this weekend. Taking two of three from the series would be a solid start, a sweep would of course be better. The Utes are 0-3 in Pac-12 play and are coming off a mid week comeback victory over Utah Valley.

The Ducks enter the weekend ranked 12 according to Baseball America. Mitchell Tolman leads the Ducks with 21 RBI’s this season, he also has 7 doubles and 14 runs and is my player to watch for this series with a .300 batting average. Teammate Tyler Baumgartner is hitting .400 on the year and has 8 doubles. He also has 30 hits for the Ducks in 2014. The pitching lineup is pretty much set for the season.

The Friday starter for Oregon Tommy Thorpe will face Junior Mitch Watrous who had solid stuff. He threw a two hitter last season against Kansas. Saturday will see the Ducks send Matt Krook to the mound against Utah Senior Righty Jeff Adams in his first start of the season. Sunday’s new ‘regular’ starter for Coach Horton is Senior Jeff Gold who will be opposed by Utah Sophomore Righty Bret Helton who last year made four appearances and had an ERA of 10.57.

The series begins on Friday at 6pm at PK Park. Game 2 is Saturday at 2pm, The finale is early at 11am on Sunday. All games will be available on the Pac-12 Live Stream online.

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