Arizona baseball recap: Wildcats shutout by Oregon in series opener

Unable to plate a run to start the Oregon series.

The Arizona Wildcats' Pac-12 Championship hopes likely came to an end on Friday night in Eugene. They were unable to score a run against the Oregon Ducks, falling 3-0 in the series opener.

In a kind of surprising move, Arizona started Cameron Ming on the mound against Cole Irvin. But for Irvin, it wouldn't matter who was on the other side.

Ming did what you would expect him to do against a lineup composed mostly of left-handed hitters. He only allowed one earned run and three hits in five innings of work to keep Arizona in the game.

The Wildcats had a huge opportunity in the 8th to get Ming off the hook for the loss.

Bobby Dalbec led the inning off with a single through the left side. Cesar Salazar recorded the first out of the inning after a long fly ball to left-center.

Dalbec then stole second with Louis Boyd up to bat. That was just one of many pitches Boyd would face in that particular AB.

Oregon and Arizona pitching had combined to hit four batters in the first seven innings of the game, but had not issued a walk.

Boyd ended up drawing the first walk of the game, which would be the final batter Irvin faced on the day.

Oregon head coach George Horton went to his closer with five outs remaining in the game, summoning Stephen Nogosek from the bullpen to face the top of Arizona's lineup.

Cody Ramer would also walk, loading the bases for Zach Gibbons.

Gibbons, who had reached base in every game this year, grounded into a 5-4-3 double play to end the inning and the threat. It also ended his on-base streak at 52 games dating back to last year.

Ryan Aguilar was able to reach base in the 9th, but was stranded on second to keep the Wildcats scoreless on the day.

Ming only gave up one earned run, but two unearned runs in the 4th created the insurmountable lead.

Dalbec, who says he had not committed a throwing error in over a year before he let one sail last weekend, committed a two-run, two-out throwing error when he spiked a short throw over to first base that would have ended the inning.

From there, it was the Cody show on the mound. Moffett was up first, when it looked like Arizona was only going to throw left-handers the entire weekend. He recorded two outs and hit a batter before giving way to Deason.

Deason, who signed with Oregon last year, but was then let go when they were over their scholarship allocation, recorded the final seven outs of the game for Arizona. The right-handed freshman allowed just one hit and struck out two (including his good friend Travis Moniot)  in his 2 1/3 innings of work, the longest outing he's had since throwing seven innings against Utah on April 3rd.

Not a bad way to come back to Eugene and stick it to the team that stuck it to you.

Arizona's offense struggled the entire game. Aguilar (2-for-3), Dalbec (2-for-3), and Boyd (1-for-2) were the only Wildcats to record hits against the Ducks star pitchers on Friday. As a whole, the team went 0-for-10 with runners on base.

The Cats will look to even the series on Saturday at 4 PM PT on Pac-12 Networks. Oregon will throw LHP David Peterson, and Arizona will have someone take the mound probably. Who it ends up being, who knows? All I know is that Geoff Blum is sure to give us a large supply of baseball cliches on the broadcast.

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