Husky Baseball Resumes Pac-12 Play, Hosts Oregon State in Seattle

Saturday, April 1

Seattle, WA

1:05 PM

University of Washington

Oregon State

Husky Baseball Resumes Pac-12 Play, Hosts Oregon State in Seattle

March 30, 2023 | Baseball

UW Notes OSU Notes Pac-12 Notes

PROMOTIONS
• Friday – Decades at the Diamond – 80's
• Saturday – Decades at the Diamond – 90's, Have a Catch Saturday
• Sunday – Decades at the Diamond – 00's, Sunday Runday

SEATTLE – Off to a strong start to Pac-12 play, Washington returns home to host another marquee series, taking on Oregon State at Husky Ballpark.

All three games of the series will be available for streaming through Pac-12 Insider, while live stats links are available on the GoHuskies.com schedule page and at HuskyStats.com.

DAWG BITES
• Winners of three in a row, Washington looks to stay hot at home, hosting Oregon State for a three-game series.
• The Huskies defeated Portland 8-3 on Tuesday, completing the season sweep of the Pilots.
• Tuesday's win was just the second this season for Washington when not outhitting its opponent.
• Prior to that, UW won back-to-back games in Westwood to earn a road series victory over No. 7 UCLA.
• It was the third straight series win over the Bruins for U Dub, all coming against top-10 ranked UCLA sides.
• Washington's 17-6 record is its best through 23 games since going 17-5-1 in 2014.
• The Dawgs have won five consecutive Pac-12 series, posting a 12-3 record over the 15 games.
• To keep the streak going, Washington will have to snap another streak, having lost its last 11 meetings with the Beavers.
• Washington has won 29 of its last 34 games during the regular season, including 19 of the last 21 home games at Husky Ballpark.
• While not-yet cracking the top-25 in any national poll, UW is ranked 30th by Collegiate Baseball and is receiving votes in the USA Today and NCBWA polls.

SERIES HISTORY VS. OREGON STATE
At 447 all-time meetings Oregon State is tied with Washington State for UW's all-time most common opponent. The Beavers hold a 251-194-2 lead in the series, having won the last 11 matchups. However, The Huskies have fared well in Seattle, holding a 113-87-2 advantage on their home turf. The Dawgs have not won a game over Oregon State since 2018 and have taken a series from the Beavers since 2013.

LAST WEEK WAS A MOVIE
The Huskies went into Hollywood and made a statement at No. 7 UCLA, taking the final two games to capture their third straight series win over the Bruins, all with UCLA ranked inside the top-10. After posting its third shutout of the season for a 3-0 win in 10 innings on Saturday, the Dawgs pulled out a wild 11-10 shootout on Sunday. UW racked up 21 hits on Sunday, its most against the Bruins since at least 1999.

Sunday's offensive barrage came against a Bruin side that entering the weekend was leading the nation with a team 2.38. Washington tagged UCLA starter Austin Kelly for three runs, the same amount he had allowed all season. The Huskies racked up a career-high nine hits on Kelly, five more than he had surrendered in any game in 2023.

PAC-ING A PUNCH
Washington has come out victorious in each of its last five Pac-12 series, including three against top-10 ranked foes. U Dub finished the 2022 season with series wins against No. 6 Stanford, No. 8 UCLA and USC and have begun the 2023 conference campaign with 2-1 series wins against Utah and No. 7 UCLA. The last league opponent to win a series over the Huskies? This weekend's opposition, Oregon State.

STOCK UP
Husky pitching is on the rise in D1Baseball's positional rankings, with three Washington hurlers making big strides:

UW in D1Baseball's Position Rankings
Kiefer Lord - Starting Pitcher - No. 100 to No. 27 (+73)
Stu Flesland III - Starting Pitcher - No. 166 to No. 41 (+125)
Josh Emanuels - Relief Pitcher - Unranked to No. 44
Will Simpson - First Baseman - Unranked to No. 22
Cam Clayton - Shortstop - Unranked to No. 18

WILL POWER
Washington slugger Will Simpson continues to do unkind things to baseballs, leading the Pac-12 and ranking 13th in the nation with 11 home runs in 2023. Beginning with the first multi-homer game of his career against Tulane, Simpson has blasted a dinger in three of the last five games, including a solo shot in Tuesday's win over Portland. The Sammamish, Washington, native has moved into solo possession of eighth place on UW's career home runs list with 29.

Simpson, who is in the midst of an eight-game hitting streak, has recorded 12 multi-hit games this season, compared to 10 games in which he has registered less than two base knocks.

CASE CLOSED
When righty flamethrower Case Matter is summoned from the Husky bullpen, a Washington victory is nearly a matter of fact. The UW closer has made seven straight appearances without allowing a run, totaling 10 innings. During the stretch, Matter has struck out 15 batters, while issuing just three hits, collecting four saves this season.

WHIP IT GOOD
Washington boasts two of the nation's top 35 pitchers in terms of WHIP, with Stu Flesland III ranked 23rd at 0.88 and Kiefer Lord ranking 35th at 0.92. Those numbers put Flesland and Lord and second and third, respectively, in the Pac-12. Flesland is leading the Pac-12 with a 5.43 strikeout-to-walk ratio, while Lord's 43 total strikeouts are the second most in the conference.

KEEPING IT CLEAN
Washington ranks eighth in the nation and leads the Pac-12 with a .984 team fielding percentage. The Huskies have committed no errors in 12 of their 23 games this season and have committed more than one error just three times.

STARTING STRONG
The Dawgs have gotten off to fast starts to innings, having the leadoff hitter to a frame reach 44.3 percent of the time. Eight different Huskies are reaching base at least half the time when leading off an inning. 45 of the 88 leadoff baserunners have come around to score.

CHIEF KIEF
Throwing six perfect innings with 10 strikeouts against Northern Colorado, Kiefer Lord was named the Week 3 Perfect Game National Pitcher of the Week and Pac-12 Pitcher of the Week. The righty hurler was the first Husky to earn a national pitching award since Joe DeMers in 2018 and the first Husky pitcher to earn a Pac-12 weekly award since Josh Burgmann in 2019.

THAT'S OFFENSIVE
The Dawgs put up astonishing numbers during their four-game series with Northern Colorado. Most notably was the school-record 32 runs scored in the series opener. Those 32 runs are the second most scored by one team in an NCAA Division I game this season (William & Mary, 33 runs). The Huskies outscored the Bears 57-12 for the series, batting .388 as a team with 15 doubles, six home runs, 51 RBIs, 26 walks, 16 HBPs and a .513 team on-base percentage.

HOMEGROWN DAWGS
Nearly half of the Husky roster, 19 of 39 players overall, are homegrown talents from the state of Washington. Of those 19 local products, 16 hail from the greater Seattle Metropolitan area. Below is a breakdown of the counties UW's Washington natives call home.

UW Washington Natives by County
King County - 14
Clark County - 2
Pierce County - 1
Snohomish County - 1
Spokane County - 1

HEEEEEEERE'S JOHNNY
After earning All-Pac-12 and Pac-12 All-Defensive Team honors in 2022, Washington catcher Johnny Tincher was named to the Preseason All-Pac-12 team as voted on by the conference's head coaches.

A redshirt junior, Tincher enters his fourth season at UW coming off of a campaign in which he ranked second on the team with a .314 average. He drove in 35 runs and scored 27 more while posting 19 extra-base hits, including 13 doubles, five home runs and a triple. Defensively, Tincher threw out 10 of 31 runners attempting to swipe a bag last season, while garnering a .989 fielding percentage.

POSITION RANKINGS
Washington has five players listed in D1Baseball.com's position rankings, released ahead of the start of the 2023 season. The full list of UW players ranked is below.

UW in D1Baseball's Position Rankings
Johnny Tincher - No. 22 catcher
AJ Guerrero - No. 52 outfielder
Kiefer Lord - No. 100 starting pitcher
Jared Engman - No. 154 starting pitcher
Stu Flesland III - No. 166 starting pitcher

RUN IT BACK
Washington returns nearly the entirety of its offense from the 2022 season with seven of eight positional starters returning that started more than 40 games, the Dawgs are poised once again to put up big numbers on the scoreboard.

Percentage Return from 2022
• Games Started - 88.5%
• Runs - 87.7%
• Hits - 91.4%
• Doubles - 92.3%
• Triples - 87.5%
• Home Runs - 93.8%
• RBIs - 90.9%
• Walks - 82.5%

THE JUCO JUMP
Washington has 10 junior college products on its roster. Four players come from the Washington Community and Technical Colleges system, with four California Community College system products and two players from Arizona's Maricopa County Community College District.

15 GAMES TO AIR ON PAC-12 FAMILY OF NETWORKS
15 Washington baseball games have been selected to air across the Pac-12 family of networks this season. Six home games from Husky Ballpark will air on your television set, while nine road games are set to be broadcasted. Of the 15 TV games for the Dawgs, 10 will air on Pac-12 Washington.

2018 OMADAWGS
2023 marks the five-year anniversary of Washington's 2018 team that became the first squad in program-history to reach the College World Series. The Huskies ran through the Conway Regional, sweeping three games against UConn and host Coastal Carolina. UW then took a decisive Super Regional Game 3 at Cal State Fullerton, erasing a one-run deficit in the ninth to force extras and walking off the Titans on Kaiser Weiss' sacrifice fly to score Levi Jordan and send the Dawgs to Omaha.

For more information on the UW baseball team, follow @UW_Baseball on Twitter and Instagram.