The Beavers work their way further south from Palm Springs to San Diego for a four-game series that will see them play their 5th-8th games during the first 10 days of the season.  SDSU opened the season with a surprising sweep of cross-town rival USD, putting a damper on the opening series at the Toreros' new $13 million ballpark.  Last year the Aztecs' were not particularly hospitable hosts when OSU visited Tony Gwynn Field, demolishing the Beavers 18-2 in the season's sixth game, so ideally the Beavs will arrive with a bit of a bad taste in their mouth and atone for that debacle.

THE WEEK THAT WAS

• Friday:  OSU 5 - Utah Valley 2


• Saturday:  OSU 9 - Gonzaga 2


• Sunday:  OSU 14 - UC-Riverside 3


• Monday: OSU 5 - UC-Riverside 4 (11 innings)

The Palm Springs tourney was a success both on the scoreboard, and in terms of providing a great mix of early-season tests - having to play from behind (Friday & Saturday), playing from ahead and trying to maintain focus with a big lead (Sunday), and the pressure of extra-innings (Monday).

The health of the starting rotation was less than ideal with Ben Wetzler and Taylor Starr sidelined, but their absence provided an opportunity for others to show their stuff, and largely those auditions were a success.  Andrew Moore was very solid in his OSU debut (W, 5.1 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 6 K), and while Dylan Davis didn't pan out on Monday (1 IP, 3 H, 2 ER, 2 BB), his struggles opened the door for Tyler Painton to very successfully log extended innings (6 IP, 0 R, 1 H, 2 BB, 4K).  The bullpen was nearly flawless, but more on that later.

Offensively, the highlight of the weekend was pinning 6 runs (5 earned) on Gonzaga pre-season All-American Marco Gonzalez, something not likely to happen many times the rest of the season.   

THE WEEK AHEAD

For the second year in a row, the Beavers will spend the second week of the season in San Diego.  This time, however, they will be hoping for better results than the four-game split they managed in 2012. A split itself is not the worst thing to ever happen, but the back-to-back 18-2 and 13-2 losses to SDSU and USD respectively may have been the most lopsided consecutive losses in program history.