Beavers Start Week Among Pac-10 Baseball Leaders
March 29, 2004
CORVALLIS, Ore. - Oregon State has four players among the Pacific-10's top 10 in on-base percentage as the Beavers (16-7 overall, 2-1 Pac-10) head into a four-game baseball week. The four - Jacoby Ellsbury, Mike Lissman, Chris Campos and Shea McFeely - also rank among the conference's leaders in either batting average or slugging percentage through Sunday's games.
OSU starts its week against in-state rival Portland (3-21, 0-6 West Coast) on Tuesday at 2 p.m. at Pilots Stadium in Portland. The Beavers then greet Arizona (13-11-1, 2-1) for a Pacific-10 series at Goss Stadium at Coleman Field with games Friday at 5 p.m., Saturday at 1 p.m. and Sunday at 1 p.m. The series against Arizona will be Little League Weekend, with all youth baseball and softball players admitted to any or all of the games for $2 when they wear their uniforms to the ballpark.
All four games can be heard on KEJO-AM (1240) and on the internet at www.osubeavers.com Oregon State's home game that had been scheduled for next Monday, April 5, against Sonoma State has been cancelled.
OSU has won six of its last nine games, including taking two of three games at California last weekend in the Beavers' first Pac-10 series of the season. Freshman righthander Jonah Nickerson (1-0 record, 6.91 earned run average) will get the pitching start for Oregon State.
The Beavers earned votes worth 34th place in this week's Sports Weekly/ESPN national coaches poll.
Ellsbury, a sophomore outfielder, is third in batting average at .418 and is seventh in on-base percentage at .509; he leads the Pac-10 in stolen bases with 12. He is on a 12-game hitting streak during which he's batting .481 (26-for-54); for the season, Ellsbury has five doubles, two triples, two homers and eight RBIs while being walked 11 times, hit by pitch seven times and striking out just six times.
Lissman, a freshman outfielder, is 10th in the Pac-10 in batting average at .375 and ninth in on-base percentage at .478. He has three doubles, two homers and 14 RBIs this season.
Campos, a junior outfielder, is fifth in on-base percentage at .513 and 10th in slugging percentage at .585. He's batting .321 this season with one double, two triples, three homers and 18 RBIs, and he's coming off a game at Cal on Sunday in which he was 4-for-6 with a home run and six runs batted in.
McFeely, a sophomore third baseman, is seventh in the conference in slugging at .610 and 10th in on-base percentage at .476. He's batting .354 with 10 doubles, one triple, three home runs and 21 RBIs.
As a team, Oregon State is third in the conference in batting average at .309 and second in on-base percentage at .417. The Beavers' pitching staff is also second in the Pac-10 in ERA at 3.98; among the individual ERA leaders, OSU senior lefthander Jake Postlewait is eighth at 3.07.
