Oregon State Baseball Notebook: No. 3 Beavers welcome in Oklahoma State

The No. 3 Oregon State Baseball team is entering the final month of the regular season with just four weekend series remaining before the postseason begins.

The Beavers (31-11-1, 17-4 Pac-12) are coming off a 6-3 loss at the hands of Gonzaga on Tuesday, but swept Washington State last weekend to stay within reach of catching Stanford for the top spot in the conference.

With an important non-conference series against Oklahoma State that could play a big hand in determining postseason seeding at Goss Stadium this weekend, BeaversEdge.com gives you the latest with Pat Bailey's squad.

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Following a pair of puzzling midweek losses to Nevada in Reno a week ago, the No. 3 Oregon State baseball team needed to bounce back in a big way at home against the Washington State Cougars.

Thanks to stellar pitching, an offensive explosion in game one, and just enough offense in games two and three, the Beavers were able to sweep the three game set with the Cougars to keep pace with Pac-12 leader Stanford.

Friday: 18-4

The back-to-back losses to Nevada midweek certainly struck a chord with Pat Bailey and Co. as the Beaver bats came to Goss Stadium on fire.

Andy Armstrong hit his first home run of the season and Adley Rustchman's seventh-inning grand slam helped send Oregon State to an 18-4 series-opening win. OSU tallied 17 hits and totaled 11 walks off five Washington State pitchers.

Rutschman's grand slam – his second of the season and 14th overall home run – helped highlight the Beavers' nine-run seventh inning. The 18 runs were the most for Oregon State in a conference game since defeating the Cougars, 19-9, in a three-game series finale in Pullman in 2008.

Joe Casey was 3-for-4, including a first-inning double, and Kyler McMahan set a career-best with four runs batted in.

Saturday: 4-3 (16)

The Beavers followed Friday's offensive romp with an opposite performance in game two, playing a 16 inning contest that ultimately ended with Jake Harvey singling and scoring Preston Jones from third to cap the longest game at Goss Stadium since 1999.

Washington State jumped out to a 2-0 lead, but the Beavers scored three in the seventh to go ahead 3-2. Troy Claunch and then Jones singled in runs before pinch hitter Alex McGary hit a sac fly.

Jake Mulholland earned his third win of the season with 5 1/3 scoreless innings. He struck out six.

Sunday: 2-0

Armed with a series win, the Beavers saved their best performance for last, as they shut out the Cougars behind Grant Gambrell's gem of a performance on the mound. He tied a career-high with 12 strikeouts in a career-long 8 1/3 innings.

Gambrell held the Cougars to two hits, both singles and retired the other 26 batters he faced and ended the day with 12 strikeouts and just two walks issued.

Washington State was 0-for-7 against him with runners on base and 0-for-4 with runners in scoring position. He dropped his earned run average to 2.57 and improved to 4-1 with the win. Christian Chamberlain picked up his second save of the season by retiring the final two batters of the game.

Bigger Picture

The sweep against the Cougars was crucial for the Beavers because it kept them within reach to control their own destiny down the stretch.

While the Cardinal have a one game edge on the Beavers in the loss column, the Beavers have a two game lead in the win column as they've played more Pac-12 games. With the Beavers not playing Pac-12 games this weekend, they'll be idle in the standings while UCLA plays a tough series at Arizona State and the Cardinal are on the road at USC.

Following the Oklahoma State series, the Beavers have road series at Oregon and at Stanford, and a home series with USC. Additionally, there is one remaining Tuesday game against Portland on May 14th.

There's something about Tuesday's...

While the Beavers managed to sweep Washington State at home over the weekend, the Tuesday bug once again bit the Beavers, this time falling to Gonzaga 6-3.

With the loss to the Zags, the Beavers have now lost six of their last seven midweek games. Despite staying in contention for the Pac-12 crown with strong weekend play, it's not necessarily a good sign that the midweek games are trending into the loss column.

Luckily for the Beavers, there's only one Tuesday game remaining, May 14th against Portland, and given how the Pilots beat the Beavers earlier in the season (5-1), OSU should be plenty motivated to end the Tuesday blues.

D1 Baseball.com's Shotgun Spratling highlighted the Beavers' midweek struggles.

Oregon State continues its home stand at Goss Stadium this weekend with a key non conference series with Oklahoma State starting Friday night.

The Beavers return to your TV screen as well this weekend as the Saturday and Sunday games are televised on Pac-12 Network while the Friday game will be live on the Pac-12 Network stream.

The Cowboys (25-16, 10-8) are fresh off getting swept by Texas Tech, with those losses knocking them out of the top 25. OSU finds themselves in fourth place in the Big 12 and is a comparable opponent to West Virginia, whom the Beavers took two of three of earlier this season.

Stay tuned for a more in-depth look at the Cowboys coming later this week...