Civil War baseball: Beavers respond with 9-0 rout of Ducks in game 2

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(Gallery by Ross William Hamilton, The Oregonian)

EUGENE – How fitting that the player most responsible for ending Oregon State's Eugene jinx is none other than Eugene native Andrew Moore.

Moore's two-hitter and some awakening OSU bats turned the ultimate regular-season pressure cooker into a laugher Saturday as the Beavers beat Oregon 9-0 at the previously haunted PK Park.

For the sixth-ranked Beavers, it answered a shutout loss from the night before, it broke the Civil War streak of 10 straight wins by the home team in conference play, it put them back atop the Pac-12 standings and it set up Sunday's rubber game with the 10th-ranked Ducks.

And it could not have come at a better time.

"We knew we would get a good start out of (Moore),'' OSU coach Pat Casey said. "We didn't know if we would be able to score a run in this ballpark.''

When Moore took the mound Saturday, he was throwing in front of friends, family and scouts, just 10 minutes away from where he was pitching a year ago, at North Eugene High School – and he was facing the team he grew up rooting for. If that weren't enough to distract an 18-year-old, how about this:

The Beavers (42-9, 21-5 Pac-12) had gone 24 consecutive innings in this ballpark without scoring a run in conference play.

"Everybody was kind of burying us a little bit, talking about this being a house of horrors, how we can't score runs here,'' Casey said.

They couldn't. The streak grew to 29 innings, but Moore didn't seem to feel any weight on his shoulders as he cruised through a 1-2-3 fifth in what was still a scoreless tie.

In the top of the sixth, Tyler Smith hit a ball sharply up the box only to be thrown out. Then Andy Peterson hit what appeared to be a sure single toward the hole, but UO shortstop J.J. Altobelli made an outstanding play to rob him of a hit, too.

So when Michael Conforto strode to the plate, there were two outs and quite a few people in the OSU dugout no doubt wondering what the Beavers had to do to get on that green and yellow scoreboard.

Then Conforto, who had hit just one home run in the past two months, hit a ball to left field that seemed to lift all that tension and carry it all out of the ballpark. Conforto exorcised with a home run trot after the ball landed in the OSU bullpen, and the Beavers dugout spilled out.

An inning later, Ryan Barnes – less than a day after getting beaned by a 92 mph fastball from UO closer Jimmie Sherfy – homered to give the Beavers a 2-0 lead, which seemed strangely comfortable with the freshman Moore on the mound.

"He was spectacular as always,'' said Peterson, who had four hits (even though he was robbed of a fifth) of Moore. "It's not even interesting to watch anymore, he does it all the time.''

In doing it on this day, Moore (11-1) became the Pac-12's first 11-game winner, preventing fellow freshman Cole Irvin (10-3) of UO from doing so.

After Barnes' homer, Moore retired the Ducks (43-12, 20-6) in order again in the bottom of the seventh and watched all of OSU's bats come to life.

Peterson's single to center scored Smith for the first of four runs in the eighth. That's twice as many runs as they had scored in the past four games here.

Peterson knocked Smith in again in the ninth and came home on a sacrifice fly by Dylan Davis to make it 9-0 and set up – what else – a 1-2-3 bottom of the ninth for Moore.

Moore threw 92 pitches, struck out two and walked one. It was a leadoff walk in the first inning.

"I just needed to take a deep breath and compose myself a little bit,'' said Moore, who admitted to being a little amped up. "After that, it was back to business, doing the same stuff I've done all year.''

The Beavers, with the demons gone from PK Park, hope for much of the same stuff out of lefty Ben Wetzler in the Civil War series finale at noon Sunday against Oregon right-hander Jake Reed.

Peterson said it was a long bus ride back to Corvallis on Friday night. The ride Saturday no doubt went about as quickly as a 1-2-3 inning.

"It was a big day for us,'' Casey said. "We needed it.''