No. 5 OSU Loses Baseball Series-Opener To Washington, 6-4

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Washington pitcher Tim Lincecum outdueled Oregon State’s Dallas Buck as the No. 5-ranked Beavers lost 6-4 in Pacific-10 baseball Friday evening at Goss Stadium at Coleman Field. Lincecum set the Pac-10 record for career strikeouts, fanning 16 OSU hitters, but Cole Gillespie managed a 2-for-3 night with a home run and four runs batted in for the Beavers (32-11 overall, 9-4 Pac-10).

Oregon State and Washington (31-17, 9-7) resume their series Saturday at 1 p.m. and conclude it Sunday at 1 p.m. Both games can be heard live on KEJO-AM (1240) in the Corvallis area and KUIK-AM (1360) in the Portland area; Saturday’s game will be televised live on FSN in the Pacific Northwest. Live audio for Saturday’s game and live audio and video for Sunday’s game will be available via subscription on the internet at .

Saturday’s game is sold out. There are approximately 125 tickets remaining for Sunday’s game, and those will go on sale Sunday at 11 a.m. at the Goss Stadium at Coleman Field ticket windows.

OSU remains in first place in the Pac-10, 1 1/2 games ahead of Washington and Southern California.

On Friday, a crowd of 2,362 – OSU’s first sellout of the season – included approximately 60 scouts from major league teams intent on seeing Buck and Lincecum. They saw Oregon State lose at home for just the third time in 22 games this season and for just the fourth time in its last 24 games overall.

The Beavers took a 3-0 lead on Gillespie’s three-run homer in the third inning, but Washington came back with four runs in the top of the fourth and OSU couldn’t draw even from then on. The Beavers also had scoring chances in the first, seventh and eighth innings against Lincecum but stranded runners at third in all three frames.

“Tim Lincecum is a very, very good arm and when you have a guy like that throwing, you have to execute,” OSU head coach Pat Casey said. “I didn’t think that we did some of the things we’ve done in the game fairly well ... the things in the game that aren’t going to change are that you have to play defense and you have to execute, especially when you get a guy who is as tough to handle as he (Lincecum) is. We swung at some bad pitches.I thought we had some opportunities early with some runners and we just didn’t get it done.”

Buck had retired the first nine Huskies he faced through three innings, then Washington scored all four of its runs in the fourth inning with two out. The Huskies got three hits and a walk in the inning, which was capped by Matt Stevens’ poking an opposite-field homer over the leftfield fence to make it 4-3.

Buck saw his personal winning streak end at 14 straight decisions, dating back to a loss at Arizona in 2005, and his scoreless innings streak ended at 22 2/3. He eventually went 7 1/3 innings, allowing six runs (five earned) on six hits and three walks while striking out seven as his record dropped to 9-1 this season. It was just Buck’s second loss in the last two seasons; he’s 21-2 in that span.

“I thought Dallas pitched fine,” Casey said. “I thought the ball that was hit out (by Stevens) was a wind-blown fly ball. We really had some good momentum there.”

That came when Gillespie launched his team-leading ninth homer of the season over the left-centerfield fence on a no-ball, two-strike pitch with two outs. Chris Kunda had tripled and John Wallace had walked ahead of Gillespie’s at-bat.

“I saw Tim a lot last year in summer ball, and I had a chance to play on his team in a weekend tournament,” Gillespie said. “I’ve been around him long enough to know what his pitches are. Even then, you have to get lucky and he gave me a pitch I was able to handle on that home run.”

Lincecum went eight innings, allowing four runs on five hits and four walks while recording the 16 strikeouts to improve his record to 11-2 this season. After throwing 146 pitches, the junior righthander gave way to Elliott Cribby in the ninth and he retired the Beavers in order to earn his ninth save.

OSU had a chance to tie the game in the bottom of the seventh when Scott Santschi tripled with one out and Ryan Gipson was hit by a pitch, but Chris Kunda hit into an inning-ending double play. Washington extended its lead to 6-3 in the top of the eighth, getting run-scoring singles from Zach Clem and Curt Rindal.

The Beavers drew within 6-4 in the bottom of the eighth as Wallace reached on a third-strike wild pitch, Darwin Barney walked and Gillespie singled through the left side to score Wallace and bring the go-ahead run to the plate. But Lincecum fanned the next three hitters – giving him four strikeouts for the inning – to finish his evening’s work and keep the Huskies in front by a pair of runs.

Kunda was 2-for-5 for the Beavers with a double and a triple. He started the Beavers’ first inning by dunking a double down the leftfield line, then after Wallace was walked he advanced to third on a double play. Gillespie walked and stole second to put runners at second and third with two out, but Lincecum came up with a strkeout to get out of the inning with the game still scoreless.

WASHINGTON 6, NO. 5 OREGON STATE 4

Washington 000 400 020 – 6 7 0

Oregon State 003 000 010 – 4 5 1

Lincecum, Cribby (9) and Lane. Buck, Paterson (8), Grbavac (8) and Canham. W-Lincecum (11-2). L-Buck (9-1). Sv-Cribby (9). 2B-Rife (UW), Kunda (OSU). 3B-Kunda (OSU), Santschi (OSU). HR-Stevens (UW), Gillespie (OSU).

HITS: Washington 7 (Rife 1x4, Hague 1x4, Clem 1x3, Rindal 2x4, Stevens 1x4, Cox 1x3), Oregon State 5 (Kunda 2x5, Gillespie 2x3, Santschi 1x3). RUNS BATTED IN: Washington 5 (Clem 1, Rindal 2, Stevens 2), Oregon State 4 (Gillespie 4).

Washington 6 (31-17,9-7 PAC-10) Oregon State 4 (32-11,9-4 PAC-10)

Player AB R H BI Player AB R H BI

--------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------

Rife, Jake dh.............. 4 2 1 0 Kunda, Chris 2b............ 5 1 2 0

Hague, Matt rf............. 4 1 1 0 Wallace, John cf........... 2 2 0 0

Clem, Zach lf.............. 3 0 1 1 Barney, Darwin ss.......... 3 0 0 0

Lane, Matt c............... 3 1 0 0 Gillespie, Cole lf......... 3 1 2 4

Rindal, Curt 1b............ 4 1 2 2 Canham, Mitch c............ 4 0 0 0

Stevens, Matt 3b........... 4 1 1 2 Rowe, Bill 1b.............. 4 0 0 0

Cox, Danny ss.............. 3 0 1 0 McFeely, Shea 3b........... 4 0 0 0

Kaluza, Brett cf........... 3 0 0 0 Santschi, Scott rf......... 3 0 1 0

Anderson, Ryan 2b.......... 4 0 0 0 Gipson, Ryan dh............ 3 0 0 0

Lincecum, Tim p............ 0 0 0 0 Buck, Dallas p............. 0 0 0 0

Cribby, Elliott p......... 0 0 0 0 Paterson, Joe p........... 0 0 0 0

Grbavac, Mark p........... 0 0 0 0

Totals..................... 32 6 7 5 Totals..................... 31 4 5 4

Score by Innings R H E

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Washington.......... 000 400 020 - 6 7 0

Oregon State........ 003 000 010 - 4 5 1

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E - Barney. DP - Washington 2. LOB - Washington 4; Oregon St. 6. 2B - Rife; Kunda.

3B - Kunda; Santschi. HR - Stevens; Gillespie. HBP - Cox; Gipson. SH - Kaluza. SB -

Gillespie 2. CS - Clem; Cox.

Washington IP H R ER BB SO

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Lincecum, Tim W,11-2...... 8.0 5 4 4 5 16

Cribby, Elliott S,9....... 1.0 0 0 0 0 2

Oregon State IP H R ER BB SO

------------------------------------------------

Buck, Dallas L,9-1........ 7.1 6 6 5 3 7

Paterson, Joe ............. 0.1 1 0 0 0 0

Grbavac, Mark ............. 1.1 0 0 0 0 1

WP - Lincecum; Buck. HBP - by Lincecum (Gipson); by Grbavac (Cox).

Umpires - HP: Joe Burleson 1B: Ruben Candelaria 3B: Kelly Gonzales

Start: 5:02 pm Time: 2:36 Attendance: 2362