Bazz is bashing, and the guys he looked up to are digging it

Travis Bazzana’s new-found home run power has resulted in a career record at Oregon State (courtesy OSU sports communications)

CORVALLIS — For years, as an Oregon State slugger was mounting a challenge to his throne, Jim Wilson would hear about it.

“I have a gaggle of friends who, about this time of year, would start calling me to wish my home run record goodbye,” Wilson says.

“Not gonna happen,” he would say.

And it didn’t. But it looks like it is going to now.

Wilson’s single-season mark of 21 round-trippers in 1982 is being approached by Travis Bazzana, who has already swatted 18 heading into the Beavers’ weekend series with Stanford at Goss Stadium.

The record has lasted for more than four decades. Barring injury, Bazzana will bring it down in the coming weeks.

“It’s a given,” says Wilson, 63, long-time radio analyst for Beaver football and occasionally Beaver baseball. “You don’t ever count on those things lasting. I’m surprised it has lasted this long.”

Jim Wilson hit a school-record 21 homers in only 44 games in 1982 (courtesy Jim Wilson)

Wilson accomplished his feat playing in only 44 games.

“That’s all we played back then,” says his coach, Jack Riley, 86 and retired in Corvallis.

Bazzana has played in only 31 games, so if he hits four more in the next 13 games, the new record won’t require an asterisk.

The awe-inspiring Australian is putting together a splendid overall junior campaign at the plate. Bazzana is tied for second in the nation in home runs behind only Georgia’s Charlie Condon, who has 21 in 33 games. The junior second baseman leads the nation in on-base percentage (.608), is tied for second in walks (39), third in batting average (.466) and tied for 10th in hits (54). He takes a 14-game hitting streak into the Stanford series. Bazzana was named National Player of the Month for March by the NCBWA.

“Travis is the single best offensive player in the history of the program,” Wilson proclaims. “I think he is going to have the best offensive season ever in Oregon State baseball, the best combination of all the categories. For him to break my (home run) record, it fits the bill. I’m glad it’s him.”

In the fifth-ranked Beavers’ 11-8 win over Portland Tuesday night at Goss, Bazzana set the school record with his 35th career homer. Past greats Andy Jarvis and Joe Gerber co-held the mark at 34.

“That wasn’t specifically a goal of mine,” Bazzana told me Wednesday before practice at Goss. “But when I came into this program, I wanted to continue the tradition of winning national championships and also continue the tradition of great player development and the names who have been first-round draft picks and are in the record books. In my competitive nature, it’s something I wanted to do. It’s just fun.”

Bazzana has begun an assault on those record books. In Tuesday’s game, he passed Jarvis as the career leader in total bases (387). He was already the leader in runs scored (188) and ranks second in slugging percentage (.648), third in stolen bases (58) and walks (143) and tied for fourth in batting average (.364).

“The dust will settle a little, and he may have some lulls, but Travis will have a number of career records by the time he is through,” Wilson says. “He is near the top of every chart.”

Bazzana ranks eighth in hits (218) and is about to pass Michael Conforto and Adley Rutschman (227 apiece) and Nick Madrigal (221). Bazzana is 20 behind record-holder Darwin Barney.

“I look up to those guys,” Bazzana says. “I wanted to know all about them since I have been here. Even before I got to Oregon State, I wanted to know what makes them special. (Surpassing) what they did here in terms of individual numbers is cool, but really, I just want to continue winning. If I’m healthy and we continue winning, things will pan out.”

But 18 homers in only 31 games? Did he know this was coming?

“I’d be kidding myself to say I expected to have 18 at this point, but I truly thought I was going to put up good home run and slug numbers this year,” Bazzana says. “Coming into the season, I was pretty confident I could hit low 20s for home runs, but I’m on pace for more than that now.”

Has Bazzana changed his approach at the plate this season?

“Everything is similar with my swing,” he says. “It’s slight adjustments, a constant tinkering game to get to a feeling of when you’re at your best, and making sure the ball is carrying off your bat properly. I have added a little more of a slight tip in my swing, which has helped me with my ball flight to the pull side. But it’s just slight.”

The results have been large. So far, things are panning out nicely for the lad from Down Under.

“When you talk about the greatest hitters at Oregon State since 1907, Travis is in the conversation every day,” says College Baseball Hall of Famer Pat Casey, who coached the Beavers to three national championships. “He is a tremendous player, a really fun guy to watch play. If there is a better offensive player in the country, I want to go see him.”

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As an 18-year-old OSU freshman-to-be with the Corvallis Knights the summer of 2021, Bazzana was named the West Coast League’s Most Valuable Player. Playing with and against college players as much as four years older, he hit .429, a record in a wood-bat loop that had been in existence since 2005.

As a freshman in 2022, Bazzana hit .306 and was named consensus Freshman All-American, first-team All-Pac-12 and to the Pac-12 All-Defensive Team. He hit six home runs — solid, but no indication of the fireworks this season. That summer, he spent 2 1/2 months living in the basement of Ryan Rowland-Smith in Seattle while working out at Driveline Baseball training facility in Kent.

Ryan Rowland-Smith (Via Twitter/X @hyphen18)

Rowland-Smith, 41, is a native Australian who pitched five big-league seasons, four of them in Seattle. He is currently a TV studio analyst who also runs a company called “Nxtgenbaseball.com.”

“When Travis was 12, he attended the first camp I hosted after I was done playing,” Rowland-Smith tells me. “We kept in touch. When he was in high school, he came with us to the Arizona Fall Classic, a college showcase event. He was a little under the radar, but talented, and such a scrappy player. He had that look in his eye.”

Rowland-Smith tipped off close friend Rich Dorman, Oregon State’s pitching coach.

“You need to take a look at Travis,” Rowland-Smith told Dorman. “He is a really good player.”

Dorman and OSU assistant coach Pat Bailey flew to Phoenix to scout the field.

“They loved Travis,” Rowland-Smith says. “He went off that week. So did Jimmy Nati (now a sophomore first baseman at Stanford). Jimmy is a stud, the one getting a ton of attention at that point. They were really high on those two.”

Soon thereafter, Bazzana took a recruiting trip to Corvallis.

“He came back and said, ‘That’s where I’m going,’ ” Rowland-Smith says. “There was no question. Off he went, and it has been amazing watching him since. I keep thinking about how much he has grown up. He is killing it. I’m proud of him.”

“Ryan has been one of my biggest mentors since I was 12,” Bazzana says. “He has been such a quality resource for me to learn more about the game, and also to sound off on what my path looks like and helping me navigate being in a new country.”

Bazzana had a terrific sophomore season for Oregon State in 2023, hitting .374 with a school-record 36 stolen bases and a .500 on-base percentage. He was first-team All-Pac-12 and All-Pac-12 Defensive Team and was named to a pair of All-America second teams. Bazzana clubbed 11 home runs, a harbinger of what was to come this season. Last summer, he was named Most Valuable Player in the prestigious Cape Cod League, ranking third with six homers in 33 games.

“He has always had a foundation for being really explosive, and he also trains really hard,” Rowland-Smith says. “Top-to-bottom explosiveness is really important. When he started to fill out and put on size, he developed the power, and he has perfected that swing. He has so much bat-to-ball skill, it’s crazy. That is where the power comes from.”

At 6-foot and 200 pounds, Bazzana is not central casting material for Tiny Toons. But he is also not in the same league size-wise as the relative behemoths he has passed or is about to pass on the OSU home run list.

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Former Beavers Scott Anderson (left) and Jim Wilson were teammates on the Double-A Indianapolis Indians in 1990 (courtesy Jim Wilson)

Wilson came to Oregon State on a football scholarship out of Crescent Valley High and became a starting offensive guard as a 6-3, 250-pound junior in 1981. He would wind up dropping about 15 pounds by the end of a baseball season, but still was the biggest man in Coach Jack Riley’s lineup.

“In high school, I had missed a lot of baseball with injuries,” Wilson says. “ When I came to Oregon State, I wasn’t a guy like Conforto who walked onto campus and was immediately the best hitter on the team. I was a project.”

As a freshman in baseball, Wilson hit one home run and played in only 23 games, generally DH-ing and batting fifth in the order. For a couple of weeks, he played spring football from Monday through Thursday and played baseball games on weekends.

“I lost my timing,” Wilson says, “and my hands were killing me. They were swollen from all the contact in football.”

The next year, the situation was a little better.

“I had to do all the football conditioning, and I had to do lifting,” Wilson says. “But once baseball started, I was cleared to practice and play. Jack was really good about it.”

Again playing DH and batting fifth behind slugger Alan Hunsinger, who belted 15 homers, Wilson hit .286 with five homers in 39 games.

Football coach Joe Avezzano had ticketed Wilson to move to starting center as a senior in 1982.

“I came out a couple of times and snapped the ball, but that was it,” Wilson says.

By that time, it was clear that baseball was Wilson’s future. He had played summer ball in Grand Junction, Colo., and Humboldt, Calif., and had begun to establish himself as a slugger.

“I had a real good summer in Humboldt after my sophomore year, and I was real confident,” Wilson says. “And I had a good year at Oregon State as a junior.”

Wilson hit .336 with 21 homers and 62 RBIs in 44 games that season.

“Should have been 22 homers,” Riley says. “We had a game scheduled against Linfield. One of the umpires didn’t show up so we had (assistant AD) Mike Corwin, a certified umpire, work the bases. Both teams agreed that was fine. Then Jimmy hits a homer and they don’t allow us to count the game.”

Wilson was a good hitter as well as a slugger.

“Jimmy made a lot of contact,” Riley says. “He was a lot more cerebral about the game than people realize. He studied hitting. His first two years, he had a little lull in his swing, where he stayed flat too long before the hands came through.

“But he was so strong. He hit a couple of tape-measure shots his junior year — ones at Gonzaga and Portland U. that are still going. In the days when the bats and balls weren’t as live, he hit another 15 where they caught the ball at the fence.”

A serious wrist injury shortened Wilson’s major-league career to nine games and 22 at-bats over two seasons with Cleveland and Seattle, but he hit 160 homers in the minors, most of them at the Triple-A level.

“Wilson was a guy who could have hit 300 homers in the big leagues if he hadn’t gotten hurt,” says Jarvis, who as a youth followed Wilson’s career.

After retiring from pro ball in 1994, Wilson has coached and worked in the Vancouver, Wash., School District. He has been around to see plenty of Beavers make a run at his single-season record. The players who came closest were Trevor Larnach (19 in 67 games in 2018), Rutschman (17 in 57 games in 2019) and Jacob Melton (17 in 63 games in 2022).

“Conforto hit 13 as a freshman, which turned out to be his best year,” Wilson says. “He had great bat speed and was a hell of an athlete. Larnach saw more pitches than anybody. He walked a ton and struck out a ton. He ended up deep in the count all the time, but had tremendous power.

“As good as Adley was, I didn’t think he was going to get enough opportunities (to break the record), because (opponents) wouldn’t pitch to him. Melton had a chance. Some games, he was on. He had tremendous raw power. But some games he just had a bad swing going.”

Last year, when freshman outfielder Gavin Turley got off to a hot start, Wilson’s crony called to say, “Your record is going down.”

“You may have the wrong guy,” Wilson answered.

“Bazzana is a threat to drive it out every at-bat, and you can’t just put him on base, because he is such a menace on the bases,” he says. “He will bother you more on first base than by hitting a solo homer. It has all added up to a bunch of home runs.”

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Gerber arrived at Oregon State in 1996 as a freshman out of Grant High, a 6-2, 220-pound left-handed first baseman who also pitched 11 games as a sophomore in 1998. He still managed to hit .377 with 11 homers in just 122 at-bats that season.

“Joe reminded me of Jim Thome,” Casey says. “A big body, not quite as tall or thick. But he had massive power.”

Gerber hit 13 homers as a junior but only nine in 55 games as a senior in 2000, when he batted .353. Like Wilson, he was a hitter as much as a slugger.

“Joe was a flat-out stud,” says Jarvis, who as a freshman who played with Gerber. “That guy could rake. Joe was an awesome player.”

Gerber would go on to play four years of minor league ball — most of them at the Triple-A level — before retiring. For the past 16 years, he has been a firefighter for the Hillsboro Fire Department.

Jarvis, a Renton, Wash., native, was a 6-5, 225-pound left-handed first baseman. Gerber moved to the outfield as a senior when Jarvis arrived. Jarvis hit four homers as a freshman, 12 as a sophomore, 11 as a junior and seven in 55 games while hitting .327 as a senior in 2003.

“They didn’t talk about launch angle in those years, but Andy had a smooth, lifted swing,” Casey says. “He could turn on some balls.”

Jarvis recalls that he hit 10 or 11 four-baggers through the first half of the season. But the Beavers had just moved from the NorPac to a combined Pac-10.

“My buddy had grown up around Jim Wilson,” he says. “He called ‘The Whale’ and said, ‘Jarvis is going to break your record. He said, ‘No, he’s not. When you get to the Pac-10, you won’t see the same level of pitching.’ He was right. It was hard to keep the pace.”

Jarvis had not only a share of the career home run record when he departed, but also owned the hits and total bases mark.

“Playing for Coach Casey, we weren’t allowed to swing for the fences every time,” Jarvis says. “If you had two strikes, your job was to put the ball in play. I bunted from time to time. We were at the beginning of the money ball thing. My junior and senior years, we were taught to see pitches and have longer at-bats. Now the guys are different. These guys are animals. They aren’t holding back. They mean business when they take their swings.”

So did Jarvis, Gerber says.

“Andy could hit with power,” Gerber says. “When the ball came in the zone, it went a long way. I felt like I had a pretty good career, but I knew right away he would be on my heels quickly.”

Gerber attended last Friday’s 13-8 win over Arizona State with his father and two of Joe’s four children, during which Bazzana led off the bottom of the first with a homer.

“We were rolling into Corvallis when he hit the home run to tie — a curveball that he destroyed into the seats,” Gerber says with a laugh. “I’m disappointed he didn’t break it when we were there.

“I don’t want to jinx him, but right now he is putting up the best offensive numbers in Oregon State history. It is impressive to watch. I’m happy he broke the (career home run) record. Any time Conforto or Rutschman or anybody else breaks one of my records, it puts me in the conversation with these guys who are going to play in the big leagues a long time. I am happy to have that happen. It gives me a chance to brag to my kids. If he continues what he is doing, he’s going to be playing baseball a long time.”

Adds Gerber: “What I like about Bazzana is he is all about winning. A championship is his focus. He is having a ton of fun playing, they are winning games and all the statistical stuff is background noise for him. It’s good, it’s fun, but he knows what he’s doing.”

Jarvis played two seasons of Class A ball. He coached baseball at Texas Tech under former OSU pitching coach — and current Linfield head coach — Dan Spencer. He has been coaching softball for 11 years and is now associate head coach at Nevada-Las Vegas. The Rebels’ head coach is Kristie Fox, his wife.

“I don’t get to see the Beavers play in the regular season, but once the postseason comes, I’m glued to the TV,” Jarvis says. “What amazes me is all those lead-off home runs by Travis. It’s like, ‘I’m here for a good time, but not for a long time.’

“His explosiveness is undeniable. Every time he swings, there is the possibility the ball is going to be hit 400 feet. But it’s under control. He has control over the explosiveness. It’s fun to watch.”

When Jarvis left OSU, he was the program’s career leader or co-leader in home runs, RBIs and total bases, with a batting average of .329. Like Gerber, he feels pride in his place in OSU baseball lore.

“My kids can look at that and see their dad’s name amongst the Beaver legends,” Jarvis says. “To play for Oregon State is something I take tremendous pride in, and am honored to have done. It is so much fun to have Oregon State baseball still be what it is. It means something. I get to enjoy that because of these guys.  It’s cool to be part of it. I am just glad to be mentioned in the same sentence as a player like Travis Bazzana.”

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Beaver head coach Mitch Canham says “you can throw big-league comps (Bazzana’s) way”

Mitch Canham played with Jacoby Ellsbury at Oregon State. In the minor leagues, the Beavers’ current head coach managed the likes of Kyle Lewis (outfielder who played for Mariners from 2019-23) Jake Fraley (outfielder currently with Cincinnati Reds) and Evan White (first baseman who played for Mariners in 2020 and ’21).

“Travis is different than all the other ones with his ability to bunt, to steal, to hit for power, to hit for power to all fields,” Canham says. “Jacoby was great, but in a different way. Travis has Kyle Lewis’ mentality and confidence, but he really reminds me of Brian Giles (a left-handed outfielder who played 15 big-league seasons with the Indians, Pirates and Padres) because of the physicality, the strength and the speed.

“You can throw these big league comps toward Travis because he can do so many things. At his age, where he is at with his swing and power potential, he has room for growth. It’s gonna get better in the next couple of years.”

One of the things Bazzana is doing this season is circle the bases with one swing. Has his home run prowess surprised Canham?

“Nope,” he says. “His fast twitch (muscle fibers) is high quality. You’ve gotta have three things to be a great hitter: Be physical enough to do it, have the swing to do it, and have the mental approach. He has those three attributes. He is extremely strong, has perfected the move (to the ball) and is confident as heck. He goes up there with one plan, and that’s hit the ball hard. He can control his move — his gather, his land and his rotation.”

Though he remains in the leadoff spot, Bazzana’s duties have changed.

“The first two years, his job was to get on base,” Canham says. “You saw him bunt more. Now we are in a different situation. He is going to swing away more often and try to do a little more damage. It’s part of developing, of growing up.”

Bazzana is a student of the game. He watches plenty of video. He uses analytics.

“It solidifies his approach,” Canham says. “He knows what he is looking for. He might know a pitcher throws a slider in certain counts. Or if he reads the metrics on a guy who has a certain kind of move, he knows that he has to get on top of the ball. He’ll be thinking, ‘I’m not going to swing at a pitch here, because I know it moves this much in this direction.’ All of that comes into his confidence and going into an at-bat with a solid plan over and over.”

Assistant coach Ryan Gipson amplifies on Bazzana’s “student of the game” mentality.

“He is the smartest player I have ever been around with metrics and analytics as it pertains to opposing pitchers,” Gipson says. “As a coach, I take a pitcher’s report and look at Trackman (Baseball tracking technology) and look at what pitcher is going to do. Bazz does that as well as anybody. He has a high understanding of opposing pitchers and reports and how he needs to approach them because of their metrics.”

Gipson admits to surprise at Bazzana’s early home run numbers.

“It’s hard to fathom — 18 in 31 games,” Gipson says. “I’d be lying if I told you I anticipated that many that soon. I knew the way he has worked, he had a chance of being a 20-homer guy this year.

“His ability to stick to his approach, to his plan, to stay with what he’s great at is so important. He is going to hit anybody’s fastball in the country. He has done a really good job of staying with his process. A few times this year he gets out of his process a tiny bit, but he has been unbelievably consistent from at-bat to at-bat.”

On road trips, Gipson will sometimes work out his players on game days.

“That’s the kind of stuff Bazz likes,” he says. “It keeps his body activated and in a good spot. He has unusual knowledge of how his body works, what he needs to do and what he needs to feel to move his barrel through the zone. That’s a credit to him and his desire to be the best.”

Riley says he had a “nice visit” with Bazzana at the Beaver baseball “Dugout Club” meeting not long ago.

“I asked him about his strike zone,” Riley says, chuckling. “He got down in front of me like he was going to hit. He talked about reading the line of the ball. It was impressive.

“Travis hits the ball on the fat part of the bat more than most big leaguers ever do. That’s because of the circular motion and the speed of his bat with rhythm and timing. He is strong, and it doesn’t matter how big you are. Probably nobody in college baseball has more bat speed than he does.”

Of all the things Bazzana has accomplished, the most remarkable might be hitting six leadoff homers, including in four straight games in late March.

“That’s pretty wild, man,” Canham says. “l mean, as a pitcher, are you thinking, ‘Should I start this game off with a walk? Should I just put him on? What are the odds? Nah — I’m going to go after the guy.’ And then — boom!”

Bazzana is modest in response when I ask about it.

“It’s a little bit luck, whenever they come, whether it’s the first or last at-bat,” he says. He pauses for a moment. “Once I got on a little streak, I might have had a little bit extra in the back of my head to get the barrel out and drive one out of the park. That was kind of fun.”

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Bazzana is projected to be a top-10 pick in the July Major League Baseball draft. In late March, MLB.com had him going at No. 1. That would give the Beavers their second No. 1 pick over the past five years, joining Rutschman in 2019.

Travis, who turns 22 in August, is doing his best to push that out of his mind. The number he is focusing on is four, as in Oregon State’s fourth College World Series title since 2006.

For now, he is must-see material for Beaver Nation.

“No one wants to miss one pitch that’s thrown to him,” Canham says. “It’s hard not to be locked in when that kid is at the plate. People come to the game with a big emphasis on, ‘I want to see him hit.’ Well, I do, too.”

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