No. 9 OSU Loses To Stanford In 11th Inning, 9-7 - Oregon State University Athletics

STANFORD, Calif. - Oregon State let a two-run lead slip away in the bottom of the ninth inning and saw a one-run lead disappear in the bottom of the 11th as the ninth-ranked Beavers lost to Stanford 9-7 in Pacific-10 baseball Saturday afternoon at Sunken Diamond. The Cardinal’s Michael Taylor hit a two-out, three-run homer to end a six-game winning streak for the Beavers (33-9 overall, 5-6 Pacific-10).

OSU and Stanford (18-22, 3-11) finish their series Sunday at 12:30 p.m. The game can be heard live on KEJO-AM (1240) in the Corvallis area, KKNX-AM (840) in the Eugene area and KICE-AM (940) in the Bend area; KUIK-AM (1360) in the Portland area will carry the game delayed at 3 p.m. Live audio is available on the internet via subscription through Beaver Nation Online at .

On Saturday, the Beavers got a pair of solo home runs from Jordan Lennerton – including one that put them in front 7-6 in the top of the 11th inning – but couldn’t wrap up the series win against the Cardinal. OSU had won the opening game of the series 13-7 Friday night.

Lennerton’s second homer of the day – and his sixth of the season – banged off the hitter’s backdrop above the centerfield fence leading off the top of the 11th inning to give Oregon State a 7-6 lead. It was the first multi-homer game by a Beaver this season; the last OSU player to hit more than one homer in a game had been Chris Kunda in the 2006 NCAA Corvallis Regional against Kansas.

OSU reliever Anton Maxwell, who had retired the Cardinal in the 10th inning, gave up a leadoff single to Joey August to start the bottom of the 11th. He struck out Brian Moon, but walked Sean Ratliff to push the tying run into scoring position and put the winning run on base.

With a pair of righthanded hitters coming up, OSU brought in righthander Greg Keim. He got Toby Gerhart to hit a grounder to third baseman Lonnie Lechelt; as August ran from second to third, he passed in front of Lechelt and Lechelt bobbled the ball. After conferring, the umpires ruled August out for interference for the second out of the inning.
That brought cleanup hitter Taylor to the plate. Keim worked the count to two balls, two strikes, then Taylor launched his next pitch well over the leftfield fence to end the game and even the series at a game apiece. It was Taylor’s sixth homer of the year.

OSU had a chance to wrap up the game after Mitch Canham had delivered a two-out, two-run double to left-centerfield in the top of the eight inning to give Oregon State its first lead at 6-4. The Beavers took that margin into the bottom of the ninth and sent closer Eddie Kunz to the mound; Kunz had recorded his eighth save of the season with 1 1/3 innings of work in Friday night’s win.

This time, Kunz walked three hitters, saw a groundball single go up the middle to drive in one run, and then hit Gerhart to force in the tying run. The Beavers managed to get the game into extra innings when Taylor grounded to second baseman Joey Wong to start an inning-ending double play.

Joe Paterson had pitched the first seven-plus innings for Oregon State, with the righthander allowing four runs on nine hits and no walks while striking out one. After the Cardinal had put four runs on the board in the first three innings, Paterson retired 10 in a row from the fourth through seventh innings.

Paterson left the game after giving up a leadoff double to Gerhart in the bottom of the eighth. Daniel Turpen – making his first relief appearance of the season – came in to retire the next three hitters without Gerhart scoring, keeping OSU in front 6-4.

Lennerton finished 3-for-4 with a pair of runs batted in and three runs scored for OSU; he has five multi-hit games in Oregon State’s last 10 games. Wong was 2-for-4 for the Beavers while Canham, Chris Hopkins and Jason Ogata were all 2-for-4 with Hopkins driving in two runs and Ogata one.

Prior to Saturday, Oregon State had been 28-0 this season in games the Beavers led after eight innings; it was just OSU’s second loss in the last two years in a game that it led after eight innings. Stanford’s win ended a string of six straight Oregon State victories in the series with the Cardinal.

For Stanford, Jeff Whitlow was 2-for-3 with a homer, Adam Sorgi was 2-for-5 with a triple and three runs batted in, Taylor was 2-for-6 and Gerhart was 2-for-4.

The first four innings saw Stanford take the lead in the bottom of the inning only to see Oregon State tie the game with two out in the top of the next inning. Hopkins’ two-out, two-run single up the middle knotted the game at 2-2 in the top of the second; Lennerton’s two-out homer to left-center squared the score at 3-3 in the top of the third; and Ogata’s two-out bad-hop single drove in a run to even things at 4-4 in the top of the fourth.

Oregon State 7 (33-9,5-6 Pac-10) Stanford 9 (18-22,3-11 Pac-10)

Player AB R H BI Player AB R H BI

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

Chris Hopkins cf........... 5 1 2 2 Ryan Seawell 3b............ 4 0 1 0

Jason Ogata dh............. 5 0 2 1 Randy Molina ph........... 1 0 1 1

Mitch Canham c............. 5 0 2 2 Brian Moon pr............. 1 0 0 0

Darwin Barney ss........... 6 0 0 0 Sean Ratliff cf............ 4 2 1 0

Jordan Lennerton 1b........ 4 3 3 2 Toby Gerhart lf............ 4 2 2 1

Mike Lissman lf............ 2 1 1 0 Michael Taylor rf.......... 6 2 2 3

Koa Kahalehoe rf.......... 1 0 0 0 Adam Sorgi 2b.............. 5 0 2 3

Scott Santschi rf.......... 3 0 0 0 Brent Milleville 1b........ 3 0 0 0

John Wallace ph........... 2 0 0 0 Jason Castro ph........... 2 0 0 0

Braden Wells lf........... 1 0 1 0 Brian Juhl c............... 2 0 0 0

Drew George 3b............. 4 0 0 0 Brendan Domaracki ph...... 0 1 0 0

Lonnie Lechelt 3b......... 1 0 0 0 Cord Phelps ss............. 5 0 0 0

Joey Wong 2b............... 4 2 2 0 Jeremy Bleich dh........... 0 0 0 0

Joe Paterson p............. 0 0 0 0 Jeff Whitlow ph........... 3 1 2 1

Daniel Turpen p........... 0 0 0 0 Joey August ph............ 1 1 1 0

Eddie Kunz p.............. 0 0 0 0 Jeffrey Inman p............ 0 0 0 0

Anton Maxwell p........... 0 0 0 0 Nolan Gallagher p......... 0 0 0 0

Greg Keim p............... 0 0 0 0

Totals..................... 43 7 13 7 Totals..................... 41 9 12 9

Score by Innings R H E

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

Oregon State........ 021 100 020 01 - 7 13 0

Stanford............ 211 000 002 03 - 9 12 2

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

E - Seawell; Gallagher. DP - Oregon St. 3. LOB - Oregon St. 15; Stanford 8. 2B -

Ogata; Canham; Gerhart. 3B - Sorgi. HR - Lennerton 2; Taylor; Whitlow. HBP - Gerhart

2; Juhl. SH - Hopkins; Kahalehoe; Lechelt. SB - Wells; Lechelt.

Oregon State IP H R ER BB SO

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

Joe Paterson .............. 7.0 9 4 4 0 1

Daniel Turpen ............. 1.0 0 0 0 0 1

Eddie Kunz ................ 1.0 1 2 2 3 0

Anton Maxwell L,3-1....... 1.1 1 2 2 2 1

Greg Keim ................. 0.1 1 1 1 0 0

Stanford IP H R ER BB SO

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

Jeffrey Inman ............. 6.0 7 4 4 4 8

Nolan Gallagher W,3-5...... 5.0 6 3 3 5 5

HBP - by Paterson (Juhl); by Paterson (Gerhart); by Kunz (Gerhart).

Umpires - HP: David Rogers 1B: Travis Katzenmeier 3B: Dan Mascarro

Start: 1:06 pm Time: 3:56 Attendance: 1756