3-2-1: Oregon captures Pac-12 Tournament title with gritty win over Arizona
The Oregon Ducks captured the Pac-12 Tournament title on Saturday with a 5-4 win over the Arizona Wildcats.
After a sluggish end to the regular season, the Ducks (37-20) reeled off four wins in the span of five days to capture the conference crown and gain some much-needed momentum ahead of the NCAA Tournament.
As we await Monday’s NCAA selection show, here are three standout performances, two observations, and one unanswered question related to the Ducks’ thrilling win over the Wildcats.
Three standout performances
Tuner Spoljaric
When freshman right-hander Turner Spoljaric took the mound for the Ducks in Thursday’s semifinal matchup with Stanford, he hardly could have imagined a worse outcome.
The Cardinal shelled Spoljaric for six runs in just 1.0 inning of work. After some very promising outings during the final month of the regular season, Spoljaric looked a shell of himself against Stanford.
On Saturday, though, head coach Mark Wasikowski and pitching coach Jake Angier turned to the freshman once again. He rewarded them with his best outing of the season.
Spoljaric tossed 6.0 innings and held a dangerous Arizona lineup to seven hits and three runs — two of which were earned while striking out three and walking none. He tossed 87 pitches, including 60 strikes, to take the pressure off a depleted Oregon bullpen.
Jacob Walsh
Few players in the Pac-12 possess the type of raw power that Oregon sophomore first baseman Jacob Walsh does.
On Saturday, Walsh showed why — despite a rocky second half of the 2023 regular season — he is still one of the more dangerous hitters in the league when he is dialed in.
With the Ducks and Wildcats tied at 3-3 in the bottom of the sixth, Walsh smashed a towering solo homer to deep right field that served as the go-ahead run for Oregon.
That was Walsh’s 14th homer of the season. He has more than doubled his total from his freshman campaign. While his late-season slump undoubtedly hurt the Ducks in April and May, he came through when it mattered most against the Wildcats on Saturday.
Matt Dallas
Wasikowski and Angier didn’t have many options by the time the ninth inning rolled around.
The Ducks’ all-conference closer, Josh Mollerus, threw 49 pitches during Thursday’s win over Stanford and was unavailable. Only two other Oregon relievers — Austin Anderson and Grayson Grinsell — possess an ERA south of 4.26 on the year. Anderson had thrown the seventh inning for Ducks, and Grinsell tossed 3 2/3 innings on Friday.
That left right-hander Matt Dallas as Oregon’s lone dependable option.
After battling through a shaky eighth inning in which Arizona cut the Ducks’ lead to 5-4 on Tony Bullard’s solo homer, Dallas returned to the mound for Oregon in the top of the ninth to face the Wildcats’ 9-1-2 hitters.
He generated two quick outs but then surrendered a bloop single to Nik McClaughry. That brought Chase Davis, arguably the best hitter in the Pac-12, to the plate as the go-ahead run. Less than 24 hours earlier, Davis had obliterated a belt-high fastball for a grand slam to secure Arizona’s trip to the tournament final.
But went right after Davis and forced the Wildcats’ slugger to fly out to left field for the final out of the game.
Dallas held the Wildcats to one earned run, two hits, and one walk over the course of 2.0 high-leverage innings.
Two takeaways
The Ducks are a resilient bunch
Few expected Oregon’s trip to Scottsdale to end with a dogpile.
The Ducks looked dead in the water toward the end of the regular season. They went 3-7 to close out Pac-12 play and entered the tournament without their top starting pitcher, Jace Stoffal, due to injury. The pitching staff looked a mess, and the lineup wasn’t as dynamic as it had been earlier in the year.
But with their backs against the wall, the Ducks played their best baseball in weeks and may have just gotten their season back on track.
Oregon is worthy of a No. 2 seed
Any hopes the Ducks had of hosting a regional died during the first week of May. A mid-week loss to Oregon State, followed by two losses to USC in Los Angeles during the ensuing weekend, sent Oregon tumbling down the national rankings and ended their chances of playing postseason baseball in Eugene.
Prior to the start of Pac-12 Tournament play, it looked like the best the Ducks could hope for was a No. 3 seed at the NCAA Tournament — and even that was far from guaranteed.
But after capturing the title on Saturday, the Ducks’ status as a No. 2 seed should be cemented. D1 Baseball listed them as the No. 2 seed in the Gainsville Regional in its latest projection, which was released Saturday morning.
While a potential matchup with the Florida Gators is a daunting proposition, it’s still preferred to entering the tournament as a No. 3 seed.
One unanswered question
Will Jace Stoffal pitch again this season?
Oregon managed to run the table at the Pac-12 Tournament while playing without its undisputed Friday night starter.
Star right-hander Jace Stoffal owns a conference-best 2.83 ERA in 10 starts this season. He has garnered Pac-12 Pitcher of the Week honors three times and struck out 56 batters in 57 1/3 innings.
But Stoffal has not pitched since April 28. The cause for his absence, according to Wasikowski, is unrelated to his pitching arm.
On May 10, Wasikowski said that Stoffal threw a bullpen that week and was nearly able to pitch against USC during the weekend prior. On May 17, Wasikowski expressed optimism that Stoffal would be available for the Pac-12 Tournament.
And yet, the ace right-hander remains sidelined.
While Oregon’s run to the conference tournament title is a tremendous accomplishment, the program’s ultimate goal is to reach the College World Series. When Stoffal was full-go, the Ducks looked like a team capable of doing that.
Only time will tell if he is available to pitch when the NCAA Tournament begins this week.
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