Ducks Even Series after Big Day on the Mound

Saturday, March 16

Eugene, Ore.

2:05 PM

University of Oregon

California

Photo by: Molly McPherson

03/16/24 | Baseball

Box Score Box Score: Oregon 5, California 1 Photo Gallery

EUGENE, Ore. – Three Oregon pitchers combined to toss a three-hitter while striking out 13 California hitters in a 5-1 Pac-12 Conference win on Saturday at PK Park.

Grayson Grinsell (6.0 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 9 K), Bradley Mullan (2.0 IP, 2 H, 3 K) and Logan Mercado (1.0 IP, 0 H, 1 K) were dominant against the Bears helping Oregon even the series at 1-1.

How It Happened: After retiring the first eight batters he faced, Oregon starter Grinsell ran into some control issues with two outs in the third. The Ducks' lefty loaded the bases with a walk, hit-by-pitch and another walk before forcing in a run with his second HBP of the inning. Grinsell got out of the jam with just one run scoring after getting a pop out to end the threat.

Oregon tied it in its half of the third with a similar type of rally. Carter Garate sparked the rally with a single up the middle, moved to second on a Jeffery Heard walk and to third when Drew Smith loaded the bases on a hit-by-pitch. Anson Aroz then walked to drive in a run, working a nine-pitch at-bat that saw him foul off five pitches including three with two strikes.

The Ducks took the lead with a four-run rally in the bottom of the fourth on a pair of two run home runs. Bennett Thompson reached on a hit-by-pitch to start the rally and scored on Ryan Cooney's two-run home run over the left-field wall. Garate followed with his second hit of the game before scoring on a Justin Cassella two-run shot over the center-field wall.

That is all the runs the Ducks pitching staff would need. Grinsell (2-0) got the win while his nine strikeouts were one shy of his career high. Mullan and Mercado pitched three scoreless innings to finish off Cal.

Box Score Notes: Luke Honikel made his first career start … Cooney's home run was his fifth of the season, one shy of Oregon's freshman record set by Jacob Walsh in 2022 … Cassella's home run snapped a 0-for-17 streak in conference games for the Ducks' outfielder … Grinsell tossed a career-high 6.0 innings allowing him to pick up his first career quality start … Smith ran his reached-base streak to 41 games with the third inning HBP.

On Deck: Oregon and Cal wrap up the three-game series Sunday with a 12:05 p.m. first pitch.

Quotes:

Head Coach Wasikowski

Response after yesterday's performance:
"Good. We won. The team responded well. Yesterday felt like four losses, but luckily in baseball, it's only one. We bounced back well. We could have been weak mentally and they weren't and decided to be a different group today than we saw yesterday. In a long season of baseball, you don't want to stub your toe too many times. We did yesterday and we didn't today so I was proud of the group."

Grayson Grinsell Performance:
"The only time they got to him was when they didn't get to him and it wasn't about them, it was about him. The only time that he struggled was when he struggled versus them getting to him. He was dominant. He threw multiple pitches for strikes. He threw multiple pitches for strikes when he was on. In the one inning where he got a little loose, he just lost a little bit of a feel for it. Then we saw him recover and rebound which we hadn't seen him do now in the past and he was able to kind of get past that bump in the road which is really good. I was happy for Grayson's growth and development there."

Thoughts on Bradley Mullan out of the pen:
"He's got a lot of appearances. (Collin) Clarke's got a lot of appearances. He's been effective. He's pitched old and on a group that's extremely young, either just with age or experience, just having some feeling of oldness from Bradley (Mullan) or Logan (Mercado), and today Grayson (Grinsell) pitched very old. We saw a lot of young stuff again today and we're going to try to get them older to where we can maybe extend the lead when we had a couple of opportunities. Overall, I thought those guys pitched old today and that was the difference."

Grayson Grinsell

Performance today:
"The guys behind me and when you have the eight guys behind you who are playing as well as they are, it's easy to throw the ball over the plate and know they are going to get outs. I trust in (Pitching Coach Blake) Hawksworth and what he is calling and just committing to the pitch and throwing it over the plate."

Trust in Bennett Thompson:
"It's hard to put it into words. The amount of work he puts in every day, you can't not trust him. You know he's going to be a brick wall back there and it's a great feeling as a pitcher."

Ryan Cooney

On power at the plate this season:
"Yeah, definitely wasn't something I had often in high school. The pitchers are better, the velos are higher so I've been super consistent with my swing, getting it right so I think that's something to do with that"

On settling into the season:
"I think I'm doing alot better since [Texas], I still think there's examples during the game where im still acting young, as Waz would say. But otherwise, I think I'm doing a good job of getting my feet down there and playing where I'm at, and I think today was another good example of that"

On feeling after hitting a Homerun in front of the crowd:
"It's awesome. It's always awesome to have the fans here, cheering us on. It's not something I usually had in high school, so Its super nice to have this experience."

Justin Casella

On getting first Pac-12 hit:
"Took a while, but happy to help the team and just keep stacking at bats, trust in the process. The balls might not fall but you just got to stick with your approach and good things will happen."

On paying attention to stats during a slump:
"I try not to look at stats, it's not as important as wins and losses to me. If you focus on that too much, you'll get in your own head and impede success in the future. So just staying consistent, not looking at that stuff is important."

On staying at the top of the order during a slump:
"It's just trust in the fact that we don't need to change a lot to fear going in a bad way. It's just keeping your head down and working hard, and the ball will start falling."