SCOTTSDALE — The Arizona Wildcats needed a reset after being swept in their final regular-season series at Oregon. So with the Pac-12 Tournament about to start, they came up with a theme:
“Happy New Year.”
The inaugural conference tourney marked the start of postseason baseball for Arizona and seven other conference clubs. The games have a different intensity about them, and the Wildcats showed something Wednesday that had been missing in Eugene.
“Perseverance, staying with it,” UA coach Chip Hale said after his team rallied for an 8-6 victory over the Ducks at sunny Scottsdale Stadium.
“They say it’s tough to beat a team four times (in a row). Oregon beat us three times up there. So the odds were with us. But I’ll tell you what: You look across the way and you see that green and you know they just keep coming back, like they did up there. So I was really proud of the guys.”
Arizona starting pitcher Dawson Netz made his first start since April 12 and was solid, helping the Wildcats win their first-ever Pac-12 Tournament game.
Fourth-seeded Arizona led 4-2, fell behind 5-4 in the sixth inning, then scored twice apiece in the seventh and ninth to put away Oregon. The Wildcats (36-21) will face top seed Stanford at 4:45 p.m. Thursday. If they win, they’ll be off until Saturday. If they lose, they’ll play an elimination game against the winner Oregon-Arizona State at 3 p.m. Friday. Stanford beat ASU on Wednesday afternoon 6-3.
“It’s tough after three losses to get that win,” said UA catcher Daniel Susac, who went 3 for 4 with two home runs and three RBIs. “It’s almost like a hitter in a slump. You need that one hit to break through. That was a good one to start off.”
Arizona had an early wakeup call for a game that started at 9:07 a.m. Susac said he woke up at 5:05. It didn’t take long for the Wildcats’ bats to get going.
Garen Caulfield’s two-run home run gave Arizona a 2-0 lead in the second inning. Susac followed with a solo shot in the third to make it 3-0.
Hale expected starter Dawson Netz to be out of the game at that point. Netz was making his first start since April 12, having missed most of the past two months because of an arm injury. But Netz was so efficient in setting down the Ducks (35-22) in the first two innings — six straight outs on 16 pitches — that he was able to stay in for the third.
Netz got two more outs, but he left with two runners on base – both of whom scored. Still, Netz gave the Wildcats all they could have hoped for and more.
“He did a really good job of commanding the zone,” Susac said. “No free bases. Just attacked. Made them put the ball in play.”
Garen Caulfield celebrates a home run during Wednesday's Pac-12 Tournament opener.
“He was mixing his pitches,” Hale added. “His velocity is not where he wants it to be at all. But his breaking ball was good, his changeup was good and he was just keeping them off balance by pitching up, down, in and out.”
Hale and pitching coach Dave Lawn had designated the Pac-12 Tournament opener as a bullpen game. Javyn Pimental followed Netz, and Chris Barraza followed Pimental.
After pitching a scoreless fifth inning, Barraza yielding a one-out walk and a double in the sixth, putting runners on second and third. Although left-hander Eric Orloff was warmed up, Hale stuck with Barraza against left-handed-hitting outfielder Anthony Hall. Hall smashed the first pitch he saw from Barraza off the right-field foul pole for a three-run homer to give Oregon a 5-4 lead.
“We do a lot of matchup stuff,” Hale said. “We look at left versus right. We look at pitch shape. Our right-handed pitchers are actually better matchups against their lefties, believe it or not. So you look at all those different things. And we were confident in Chris. He just made a bad pitch.”
The Wildcats were undaunted.
“We came into the dugout after the sixth (and) said, ‘Win the last three.’ That’s been our mentality all year,” Susac said. “If we’re gonna make a deep run in the playoffs, we’re gonna have to win a lot of last threes.”
Mac Bingham led off the seventh with a single to center. Two hit-by-pitches, sandwiching a walk, pushed across the tying run. Chase Davis then gave Arizona a 6-5 lead with a sacrifice fly to right.
Arizona's Chase Davis slides into second base.
Reliever Quinn Flanagan stranded two runners apiece in the seventh and eighth, preserving the one-run lead. Susac then hit his second homer, a two-run blast – which came in handy when closer Trevor Long surrendered one run in the ninth before securing the final two outs.
Tanner O’Tremba makes a diving outfield catch in Wednesday's win.
“What he did today is what he’s meant to this club: He’s been a leader,” Hale said of Susac, who made the Pac-12 All-Conference Team for the second straight year. “What he does behind the plate is just as important.
“Being that leader and the hitting part — shoot, that was incredible.”
