Dax’s dandy, four bombs, and Beavers move on
Freshman Dax Whitney was dominant in pitching Oregon State to a 7-2 victory over TCU Saturday (courtesy Dominic Cusimano)
CORVALLIS — Due to its independent status and difficulty in getting teams to play in Corvallis, Oregon State had only 19 home games on its regular-season schedule. Beaver Nation yearned for more.
“Everyone wanted more home games,” coach Mitch Canham said Saturday after the Beavers staved off elimination in the Corvallis Regional with a 7-2 victory over Texas Christian at Goss Stadium. “Why get three when you can have five?”
Canham was being facetious. His preference would be for Oregon State to be 2-0 and in the winners’ bracket after Saturday action.
But 1-1 beats 0-2, and the Beavers live to see another day after winning the first of what they hope are four elimination games in the Regional.
Dax Whitney pitched the game of his young career and his teammates belted four home runs as the No. 1 seed Beavers (42-13-1) rebounded from their shocking 6-4 loss to No. 4 seed Saint Mary’s before a spirited crowd of 4,237.
“It was a good response to yesterday, especially by (Whitney),” Canham said. “He did an amazing job with his changeup as well as executing every pitch in the zone where he wanted it.”
Whitney allowed four hits and two runs with only one walk over six innings, notching season highs for strikeouts (12) and pitches thrown (104, including 69 strikes).
“It felt like it was 0-1 every single at-bat,” TCU coach Kirk Saarloos said. “He did a really good job of throwing the fastball down, but also up. We didn’t do a good job of laying off the bigger breaking ball, which was down. And he threw the changeup just enough, and the slider to righties.
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“You have to tip your cap to the young man. He threw it extremely well, and we never really adjusted to what he was doing. It felt like he was always on the attack and in positive counts.”
Whitney (6-3) was asked if he was extra juiced for his first taste of the postseason.
“My mindset was no different than any other game,” said the 6-5, 205-pound native of Blackfoot, Idaho. “My stuff is not going to get nastier. I am not going to throw harder. I just attacked the hitters the same way I do every time.
“Today, the curveball down worked really well for me, and the changeup.”
Whitney struck out the side on 17 pitches in the first inning, bringing the partisans to their feet for a rousing ovation for the first of several times on the day. He had three more strikeouts in the second, two in the third, one in the fourth, two in the fifth and one in the sixth. Senior catcher Wilson Weber was asked if he has seen the lanky freshman pitch a better game.
“There have been a couple of other really good outings, but this is definitely the favorite,” Weber said. “What we needed was for him to go deep and get the boys going. It was fun to be back there for him.”
The Horned Frogs (39-20) got to Whitney only once, on a two-run homer in the fifth inning by left fielder Isaac Cadena. By that time, Oregon State led 7-0. The Beavers jumped on TCU starter Mason Brassfield for three runs in the first inning courtesy of Weber’s three-run homer off a fastball.
“I knew I was getting either a heater or a slider,” said Weber, who has 11 four-baggers this season. “I did a quick prayer. I actually asked for a home run, which is pretty cool. I walked up with some confidence, got my heater and took it the other way. Well, to left-center.”
Trent Caraway made it 4-0 in the second inning with his second solo homer in two days, chasing Brassfield and bringing on another southpaw, Braeden Sloan. OSU got three more in the third on a solo shot by AJ Singer and a two-run, opposite-field dinger by Tyce Peterson, and suddenly it was 7-0.
“Everyone showed up with electricity in their veins today, including our fans,” Canham said. “If anything, we may have shown too much energy around one another in the dugout early on. Trying to maintain that for the entire game is difficult.”
The Beavers didn’t. After the third, they managed only one hit the rest of the way — an eighth-inning, check-swing single off the bat of lefty swinger Dallas Macias down the third-base line, with the TCU infield shifted to play him to pull.
After getting punched out 16 times by Saint Mary’s pitchers on Friday night, the Beavers fanned 12 more times on Saturday. On the other hand, Whitney and Nelson Keljo — who came on to pitch the final three innings in relief — combined for 16 strikeouts of the Horned Frogs.
“It was great to see Nelson come in and close the door and put us in great position to continue on,” Canham said.
Oregon State will send sophomore left-hander Ethan Kleinschmit to the mound in Sunday’s 3 p.m. game, a return date with Saint Mary’s. If the Beavers win, they will come back for a 7 p.m. contest against Southern Cal, the lone unbeaten team remaining after knocking off the Gaels 6-4 Saturday night. If OSU wins that one, it forces a Monday showdown for the right to advance to a Super Regional.
That is a lot of ground to cover. The Beavers sound confident that they can do it.
“We know we can win a lot of ballgames in a row, so we weren’t pressing today like I think we did a little bit (Friday) night,” Weber said. “It was like we were playing not to lose. That was one of those wake-up calls — like, that’s not how we want to play.”
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