After Four Strong Starts Last Week, Ducks Look to Take Better Advantage At Home
04/05/18 | Baseball, @GoDucksMoseley
The addition of Kenyon Yovan and Kolby Somers to the rotation has paid dividends for Oregon baseball, which hosts WSU this weekend beginning with a doubleheader Friday at noon.
Two days removed from a road trip that mixed frustration and encouragement in equal doses, the Oregon baseball team returned to practice.
The sun was shining over PK Park for Wednesday's workout, but that wasn't the only reason for the Ducks' sunny attitudes. Getting a little distance from the final two games of last week's four-game trip to the Bay Area, which included 27 runners left on base, provided time and space to truly appreciate the performance of the UO starting pitchers on the trip.
Sophomore Kenyon Yovan kicked it off with six scoreless innings to beat No. 3 Stanford on Thursday. Staff ace Matt Mercer followed Friday by pitching into the sixth and allowing two earned runs, and freshman left-hander Kolby Somers followed with another six-inning effort Saturday, allowing just one run. The Ducks squandered the latter two efforts, but though their clutch hitting didn't improve Monday at San Francisco, James Acuna provided four more scoreless innings to start the game and Oregon won to come home with a 2-2 record on the road trip.
"I'm a little encouraged for the second half of the season, and I hope the players are too," UO coach George Horton said Wednesday. "I think we've got some continuity to our pitching; we've got pitching depth. That's a good start."
The Ducks will look to build off those pitching performances last weekend – and take advantage of them with better results on the scoreboard – when they return to action this weekend at home. Oregon will host Washington State in a three-game series beginning Friday at PK Park, with a weather-adjusted schedule that begins with a doubleheader at noon Friday, no game Saturday and game three as scheduled Sunday afternoon.
Mercer is scheduled to start the opener Friday, and brings into it a 3-2 record with a 2.53 ERA. In the nightcap, Yovan will make his third start since moving from the back end of the bullpen to the rotation, and his first since last week's eye-opening performance at Stanford.
"He dominated," sophomore third baseman Spencer Steer said. "Going into the No. 3 team in the country's park, we wanted to make a statement: that people should not take us lightly. Obviously the weekend didn't end the way we wanted to after that start, but I thought that maybe turned some heads, and was a start we really needed."
Yovan's start did indeed turn heads, all around the Pac-12, which named him conference pitcher of the week. Just as encouraging for the Ducks' long-term prospects was the start two days later by Somers, who struck out six and walked none over his six innings, and deserved a win that didn't materialize due to the Ducks' 1-for-9 hitting with runners in scoring position.
"He was spectacular in defeat, and he had a heck of a bullpen today," Horton said Wednesday. "I think we're seeing the development of a young star; hopefully he can be consistent. It's only one real dominant start, but it was against an awfully good team, in a rubber game. Hopefully he can continue down those lines."
Somers has started the last four weekends for the Ducks, and has allowed two earned runs or fewer in three of those outings. As a left-hander who leans heavily on his curveball and changeup, he presents a dramatically different look following the hard-throwing righties Mercer and Yovan.
Mercer said Somers also has been working on his slider command. When he saw Somers get swings and misses with that pitch at Stanford, Mercer said, he knew Somers' confidence would grow. Indeed it did.
"It was a good feeling," Somers said of the outing. "That was a big step for me mentally. It helped me believe, we can compete with anyone."
Oregon will look to prove that over the next couple weekends, at home against the Cougars beginning Friday and a week later at Washington. The Ducks and WSU are two of four teams tied in the Pac-12 standings at 3-6.
Better hitting in the clutch would go a long way toward getting that conference record more in line with Oregon's overall record for the season – 16-11 counting nonconference play, and No. 22 in the RPI as of Thursday. The Ducks stranded 13 runners in Somers' start and were shutout Saturday, then stranded another 14 on Monday at USF despite winning.
Steer said the Ducks, a team that hunts fastballs, need to make "a simple adjustment" when a pitcher gets in trouble, and anticipate more off-speed stuff. Do that, and Oregon will be better able to take advantage of what's starting to look like a deep, talented pitching rotation.
"It's a long season, but at the same time we've got to start digging ourselves out of this hole," Steer said. "… We've got to put together a stretch of some good games here, and hopefully go on a run."
