Beavers tame Tigers, and now the season is on the line Monday at Goss
Freshman second baseman Travis Bazzana celebrates after scoring the winning run in Oregon State’s 4-3 win over Auburn Sunday at Goss Stadium, which evens the best-of-three Super Regional series and forces Monday’s Game 3 (Karl Maasdam/OSU athletics)
CORVALLIS — Both coaches used the same adjective as they met with the media following Oregon State’s 4-3 thrilling victory over Auburn Sunday night at Goss Stadium.
“The two Oregon State pitchers were phenomenal,” Auburn’s Butch Thompson said of Cooper Hjerpe and Ben Ferrer, who combined to stymie the heavy-hitting Tigers on five hits and three runs.
“A phenomenal performance all-around from our guys,” Oregon State’s Mitch Canham. “The kind of heart and resiliency they show day in and day out. … I’m not going to say I was at all surprised about the way they went about their business tonight.”
Hjerpe and Ferrer held the Auburn bats in check and the Beavers came up with just enough offense to force a deciding game in the best-of-three Super Regional series. The teams square off at 4:30 p.m. Monday at Goss with the season on the line.
Oregon State (48-17) was facing an elimination game after losing 7-5 to Auburn on Saturday night. Now the Beavers are one win away from their seventh College World Series appearance in 17 years.
“Tonight showed the energy and grit we need to bring every single inning, every single pitch,” said freshman second baseman Travis Bazzana, who socked a solo homer and used aggressive base-running to score what proved to be the winning run in the sixth. “We’re in the driver’s seat (Monday). Goss is going to bring it. We just have to bring our ‘A’ game — win pitches and play with confidence.
“One of the best things we did today — we didn’t play tight. Our backs were against the wall, but we were loose. We’re going to go out and do it (Monday), too.”
Hjerpe was unable to pitch in Saturday’s opener because, as Canham described it, he was “under the weather” with “a little bug.” The coach wasn’t sure Hjerpe would be able to go Sunday until the All-America pitcher reached out to OSU coaches early in the day.
“When you get up in the morning and say you’re taking the ball — that’s the message he was delivering to us,” Canham said. “He communicated to us that he was feeling quite a bit better. He’s the guy you want (to pitch).”
The finalist for the Golden Spikes and Dick Howser awards as the nation’s top pitcher wasn’t at full strength Sunday, but he gave a memorable performance in his final outing at Goss, surpassing Luke Heimlich’s single-season strikeout record (Hjerpe has 161) in helping keep Oregon State’s season alive. The junior left-hander further established himself alongside such as Heimlich, Jonah Nickerson, Dallas Buck, Matt Boyd and Andrew Moore in the pantheon of Beaver pitching greats.
Hjerpe, projected to be a first-round pick in next month’s major league draft, faltered only in the fourth inning after solo shots by Bazzana and Jacob Melton gave Oregon State a 2-0 lead.
Auburn (41-20) used three doubles to plate two and even the count at 2-2 in the bottom half. Cole Foster led off with a sharp two-bagger, advanced to third on a ground-out and scored on a wild pitch. After a flyout,
Brooks Carlson blasted a two-base shot off the center-field fence. Then Brody Moore blooped a 1-2 pitch in front of a diving Jacob Melton for a double in center to tie the score.
Oregon State used small ball, base-running and a pair of Auburn errors to regain the lead with single runs in the fifth and sixth.
In the fifth, Matthew Gretler led off with a single to right center and Kyle Dernedde sacrificed him to second. Justin Boyd then surprised the Tigers by laying down a bunt for a base hit. On the play, Auburn starter Joseph Gonzalez threw the ball away at first, allowing Gretler to score from second.
In the sixth, Bazzana drew a two-out walk. As Auburn reliever Chase Allsup was setting for a pitch to Jake Dukart, Bazzana broke for second. Allsup stepped off the rubber, wheeled around and threw the ball into center field. Bazzana wound up up at third and scored on Dukart’s single to make it 4-2.
“I had a good idea the guy on the bump wasn’t very quick to the plate,” said Bazzana, the native Australian who was MVP for the Corvallis Knights in the West Coast League last summer. “They hadn’t been picking off very much this series, probably due to (catcher Nate Larue’s) elite throwing ability.
“I was trying to get a moving lead and time up (Allsup) to put myself in scoring position. I wasn’t looking for him to step off, but I broke a little bit early because he held longer than a lot of guys do. I was trying to be aggressive and make things happen. It paid off.”
Said Thompson: “They have such a good offense, you’re in trouble if you give them four outs in an inning. We did that back to back.”
Hjerpe was removed with two out in the sixth after issuing a two-out walk to Bobby Peirce. He had thrown 88 pitches.
“Cooper was a bit fatigued,” Canham said. “He was really battling. He was on short rest, and being under the weather, to do what he did was extremely impressive. He emptied his tank today. He gave everything.”
As he walked off the mound to the dugout, Hjerpe was greeted with a thunderous standing ovation by the 4,101 in attendance, then disappeared into the dugout to a flurry of hugs and butt pops from teammates.
“Cooper Hjerpe!” chanted fans. Momentarily, Hjerpe — who was not made available to the media after the game — reappeared for a final curtain call, waving his cap at the cheering throng.
“Having everyone chant his name in his last start here at Goss — that was a very special moment,” Canham said. “He’ll remember that the rest of his life. Who knew he’d be able to go 88 pitches as effectively as he did? He wasn’t going to let anything distract him from going out there and doing anything but his best.”
Said Bazzana: “Coop watched us go down (Saturday) night. He didn’t want anything more than to come out and be the guy he’d been all year and dominate. He showed why he is possibly the best pitcher in the country.”
Upon Hjerpe’s departure came Ferrer, the junior transfer from South Carolina-Upstate in his first season as a Beaver. The junior right-hander gave up a single to Carlson, then served up a wild pitch that scored Peirce from third.
That was it, though. Ferrer worked the final 3 1/3 innings, allowing two hits and no runs, with no walks and three strikeouts in only 41 pitches. Closer Ryan Brown wasn’t needed.
“I wasn’t going to go out there and take him out,” Canham said. “Ben was looking sharp. He looked in control.”
“As soon as I come into a game, I’m thinking, ‘Nobody’s taking me out of it,’ ” said the Alpharetta, Ga., native, a first-team All-Pac-12 selection this season. “I’m in there to finish the job. That’s my mentality.”
The Tiger hitters were never able to square up on Ferrer’s slider.
“I used it a good bit,” he said. “It’s been my go-to pitch all year. It felt good tonight. I was also getting guys out with some other pitches — a lot of good heaters and changeups to keep them off-balance.”
Auburn showed outstanding outfield defense on Sunday. Left-fielder Mike Bello and center-fielder Kason Howell both made diving catches to rob Beavers of hits in the fourth inning. In the ninth, Gretler was gunned down by right-fielder Peirce on a perfect throw to home while trying to score from second on Boyd’s single.
“The guys made some nice plays,” Thompson said. “We had to have them to help us hang in there to even keep it close.”
Boyd got three of Oregon State’s nine hits, but the best sign at the plate was the work of Melton. The Pac-12 MVP has seemed off balance in the postseason and was 4 for 21 heading into Sunday’s game, when the junior from Medford hit the ball long and hard three times. Besides his second-inning homer — which gave him 83 RBIs and ties him with Adley Rutschman atop the school single-season list — Melton flew out to the fence in left-center and pulled a ball high and long that was well beyond home run distance, but foul.
Melton’s bat will be needed in Monday’s rubber match. Auburn would like to see its big stick — 6-1, 265-pound Sonny DiChiara — come alive. The senior first baseman, who has hit 21 homers this season, bashed a two-run shot in the first inning Saturday but has since gone 0 for 7 with four strikeouts.
The Beavers will enjoy a decided home-field advantage.
“We’re extremely grateful for Beaver Nation and the support,” Canham said. “You can feel the place shaking from the environment here. The fans chanting and clapping and hollering and getting on top of everything — it provides a ton of energy and excitement.”
Neither coach would reveal a starting pitcher for Monday’s Game 3. Auburn’s likely starter is junior right-hander Mason Barnett (3-2, 4.13), who threw 5 1/3 innings of one-hit, no-run ball with three walks and 10 strikeouts in the Tigers’ Regional-clinching 11-4 rout of UCLA last week.
Canham could call on freshman right-hander Jacob Kmatz (8-2, 4.19), the No. 3 starter through the regular season. Kmatz has struggled in his last five starts, though, yielding 17 earned runs in 22 1/3 innings. A more likely choice would be sophomore right-hander Jaren Hunter (2-1, 4.01), the No. 4 starter who has shown he can provide three to five innings of solid work.
Then it might be a turn to a bullpen that includes Reid Sebby, A.J. Lattery, Mitchell Verburg, Brock Townsend, perhaps Ferrer and certainly Brown.
“It’s Game 3,” Canham said with a smile. “Every hand on deck.”
Each team has beaten the other in a tight game played to the wire.
“It’s two good teams that keep chipping away at each other,” Thompson said. “This has been an exciting two days. This is what it’s supposed to be like. This is what it’s supposed to come down to. I don’t know what kind of a game it will be (on Monday), but I’m excited to get to come back out here.”
That’s the way Bazzana feels, too.
“This is everything I chose to be a Beaver for,” he said after Sunday’s game. “Tonight was a showing of what Goss is about, what this program’s culture and family is about. It’s what I came here to do — play playoff baseball, play to go to Omaha, play to win it all.”
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