Maybe it was the meeting. Maybe it was the message.
Whatever the case, the Arizona Wildcats looked like themselves again Saturday night.
They got on base. They advanced runners. And they put themselves in position to tie a critical series against No. 5 Oregon State.
The Wildcats blew the game open in the eighth inning and beat OSU 15-4 in front of an announced crowd of 4,284 at Hi Corbett Field.
After a 6-2 series-opening loss Friday night, UA coach Jay Johnson gathered the team in shallow right field for a talk that lasted more than 20 minutes. If it wasn’t his longest on-field postgame speech since coming to Tucson, it was in the top five.
The general theme of the talk, per Johnson: “It was a very clear message for what we need to improve going into tomorrow.”
The main issue, as Johnson saw it, was that Arizona’s hitters did not make it as “tough to collect outs” on Oregon State’s pitchers as the Beavers’ hitters did on the Wildcats’ pitchers.
Tough-luck UA starter Cody Deason needed 117 pitches to get through six innings Friday night. Meanwhile, Arizona batters made 16 fly-ball outs on a night when the wind was blowing in from right field.
“These past few weeks, we’ve been really hitting line drives, having quality ABs,” said third baseman Nick Quintana, one of the few Wildcats who had multiple quality at-bats. He went 2 for 3 with a home run and a walk.
“I think we just got outside of what we’ve been doing,” Quintana continued, “and tried to do a little too much.”
The Wildcats rediscovered their approach Saturday night. They knocked out OSU star pitcher Luke Heimlich in the fourth inning despite just one extra-base hit.
After Oregon State took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first, Cal Stevenson led off the bottom half of the inning with a line single to center on a 1-2 pitch. Stevenson advanced two bases on a passed ball and a wild pitch and scored on Alfonso Rivas III’s line single, which ticked off the glove of leaping second baseman Andy Armstrong.
After Rivas got picked off, Quintana, Cesar Salazar and Blake Paugh laced consecutive singles. Quintana scored to make it 2-1.
With the score 2-2 in the bottom of the second, Rivas struck again. The junior first baseman sliced a double down the third-base line to drive in two and make it 4-2.
That Stevenson, Rivas and Salazar were heavily involved in those rallies was significant. The veterans – Arizona’s most consistent hitters, all with batting averages well north of .300 – went a combined 0 for 11 Friday. Stevenson and Salazar saw on-base streaks of 20 and 25 games come to an end.
Arizona extended the lead to 6-2 in the fourth without the benefit of a hit. A hit-by-pitch, three walks and an RBI groundout did the damage – the types of grind-it-out at-bats the Wildcats couldn’t produce the previous night.
All six runs were earned and charged to Heimlich, the 2017 Pac-12 Pitcher of the Year. Heimlich yielded just 10 earned runs in 118ª innings last season, when he went 11-1 with a 0.76 ERA.
After working out of trouble for most of the first five innings, UA starter Michael Flynn couldn’t survive the sixth. Cadyn Grenier’s two-out, two-RBI double to left made it 6-4.
Left-hander Avery Weems replaced Flynn and retired Steven Kwan on a fly out to left. Flynn was the first Wildcat to greet Weems as he exited the field.
Weems pitched a scoreless seventh. Arizona added a run in the bottom half on Ryan Haug’s single off the glove of a diving Grenier. The hit scored Mitchell Morimoto, who led off the inning with a walk.
The Wildcats caught a break in the top of the eighth. Tylor Megill walked Grenier with two outs and runners on first and third. The fourth ball was a wild pitch. OSU’s Tyler Malone tried to score, but Salazar tracked down the ball and fired it to Megill, who tagged Malone to end the inning.
Quintana’s double to left in the bottom of the frame drove in Rivas to make it 8-4.
Arizona gave the bullpen ample breathing room with an eight-run explosion in the bottom of the eighth, highlighted by Cameron Cannon’s grand slam.
Inside pitch
•Flynn positioned himself near the end of the dugout next to injured pitcher Randy Labaut, who took in part of the game with his teammates. Labaut is out for the season and on crutches after having two surgeries for compartment syndrome in his left leg last month.
• Deason was Arizona’s in-game interview subject on Pac-12 Networks. He conducted the interview with bubble gum atop his hat, courtesy of teammate Travis Moniot.
• Senior Seve Romo made his first career start at shortstop. Freshman Jacob Blas again was unavailable after having an emergency root canal this week. Moniot started Friday night.
