Arizona baseball recap: Wildcats offense stays hot, downs Cougars 14-5 in series opener

Making up for a month without runs I guess

After Tuesday night's game, we were left wondering if the momentum from 20 hits that night would carry over moving forward.

Well, it certainly stayed around for one game.

The Arizona Wildcats opened a three-game series in Pullman against the Washington State Cougars with a dominating 14-5 win.

JJ Matijevic, who had a career night on Tuesday, did more of the same on Friday night. The freshman capped off a productive fourth inning with a three-run home run over the center field wall, which put Arizona up 7-2 at the time.

The fourth inning rally started with a Kevin Newman walk with one out. Riley Moore then laced a double down the right field line, which brought Newman all the way around to put the Wildcats up 3-2.

After Bobby Dalbec was hit with a pitch, Michael Hoard singled to right, scoring Moore, and bringing Matijevic up with two guys on base.

Arizona wound up scoring in six of the final seven innings on the night, highlighted by three runs driven in each from Matijevic, Moore and Zach Gibbons. Gibbons, who made a great catch in the second inning, tied up the game with an RBI single in the third inning. He wound up going 2-for-4 with two walks, just like Moore.

Starting pitcher Cody Hamlin worked through some trouble in the first inning to end up going eight innings on the night. He surrendered ten hits and one walk, resulting in four earned runs. With how poorly the first inning went, it's surprising that he wound up only throwing 97 pitches.

WSU pitching gave up ten walks and a hit batter, which gave Arizona plenty of opportunities to hit with runners on, and for once, the Wildcats took advantage. As a team, UA was 12-of-29 with runners on, and 7-for-21 with runners in scoring position.

The two teams will meet again Saturday afternoon at 2 PM PT. Nathan Bannister will go up against the Cougs' best pitcher, Joe Pistorese. You'll be able to stream the game here to go along with a crazy day in sports on Saturday.

from Arizona Desert Swarm - All Posts http://ift.tt/1zBu0HL
via IFTTT