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With the Oregon State baseball team forcing a winner-take-all game with USC on Monday with an 14-1 victory on Sunday night, BeaversEdge Publisher Brenden Slaughter and senior writer Ryan Harlan give three reasons why the Beavers will take the finale...

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On paper, the Beavers do have enough depth to make the Corvallis Regional final competitive, given that they used three arms on Friday, two in the win over Saint Mary’s, and three arms in the 14-1 victory over USC on Sunday.

What helps the Beavers especially is the fact that you took Ethan Klienschmit deep, throwing over 100 pitches and seven innings. Joey Mundt pitches a couple of innings to close out the 20-2 win over Saint Mary’s, and then going with the trio of Wyatt Queen, the return of Kellan Oakes from Friday, and Zach Kmatz to close out the 14-1 win against USC.

The real question now for the Beavers is, given the arms that you have used and the fact that USC tagged you for 12 hits, even with the lopsided score, will you have just enough in the pen to pull through? Because outside of a few guys you used and Eric Segura, the cupboard is bare with experienced arms.

Sure, you have Segura, but then again, we did see him be erratic on Friday, but he will have a pitch count as he threw 30 pitches in the opener. However, behind him, you do have fresh arms in James DeCremer, Tanner Douglas, Max Fraser, Bryce Johnson, Drew Talavs, Chase Reynolds, Adam Haight, and Noah Ferguson.

Realistically in a do-or-die game like tomorrow, I think you go with a platoon of DeCremer, Douglas, Fraser, and possibly Talavs if you’re Dorman and Mitch Canham if you can get a good quality start out of Segura if you go with him for Monday.

However, they do have some guys that they go to in a pinch if needed for some high-leverage innings or to get out of a jam, like AJ Hutcheson, Laif Palmer, and Nelson Keljo. Those guys have already pitched, but Palmer has had a low pitch count so far and could be leaned on a lot more compared to Hutcheson and Keljo.

Canham, though, has hinted that we will see Hutcheson and Keljo again at some point during this regional, which I could see them being brought back in this case for a game with so much on the line for the Beavers this postseason. Hutcheson came up clutch on Friday to hold the Gaels scoreless through five innings, can he recapture that again?

Despite those concerns, this is a game seven after all, the best words in all of sports. I think it’s going to be a matter of which pitching staff wants it more, and Trojans ace right-hander Caden Aoki will lobby hard to get the ball on Monday.

USC head baseball coach Andy Stankiewicz mentioned that there are a lot of guys they’re looking at right now to start Monday. However, he did confirm that Aoki may lobby to come out of the bullpen Monday, but that’s going to be more of a game-time decision.

Realistically, if Aoki does come in like Keljo and Hutcheson, it’ll be a high-leverage spot for one to two innings since he did throw 114 pitches on Friday in their opening win against TCU. However, we won’t know until first pitch how involved Aoki will be in Stankiewicz’s plans to handle the bullpen in the Corvallis Regional final.