For a game with the built-in intrigue of a win-or-go home showdown, this one sure didn’t stay interesting for very long. By the fourth inning of Oregon State’s 11-4 win over Louisville, fans were thinking more about Omaha’s famed steakhouses than its baseball.
College World Series 2013: Oregon State roughs up Louisville 11-4, sends Cardinals home
There wasn’t much drama in Monday afternoon’s elimination game as the Beavers took advantage of hot bats and frequent Louisville mistakes to stave off elimination.
The story here was a combination of big bats from the Beavers and big mistakes from the Cardinal defense. Louisville committed four errors and allowed four unearned runs on the day, the majority of those mistakes coming in a two inning span between the third and fourth when OSU scored ten of its 11 runs.
Oregon State got going in the third inning when a double from Tyler Smith scored Max Gordon for the first run of the game. Thanks in part to the Cardinal catcher’s inability to snare a spinning foul pop-up behind the plate and a throwing error on the shortstop, OSU would go on to grab two more runs and take a 3-0 lead.
The Beavers then broke the game open with seven runs in the fourth. Louisville retired two of the first three batters and was thinking quick inning, but three consecutive singles plated two more and knocked starting pitcher Jeff Thompson (3⅔ IP, 7 H, 7 R, 3 ER) out of the game. Two walks, an error, a hit batter and a single later, and Oregon State led 10-0.
After a tough loss to Mississippi State that saw a possible walk-off home run die on the warning track for the final out, the Oregon State batters took out some frustration Monday, putting together their second-highest point total of the tournament on 11 hits. Four Beavers had multiple hits and six recorded at least one RBI. Andy Peterson led the team with a 3-for-4 performance, and All-American Michael Conforto went 2-for-4 with an RBI.
OSU’s starting pitcher Ben Wetzler improved to 10-1 on the year with an eight hit, three run outing over 6⅓.
For the Cardinals, the loss ends an impressive season that saw them finish 51-14 overall, 20-4 in the Big East and knock off No. 2 Vanderbilt in the Nashville Super Regionals to reach their second CWS in school history.
Oregon State survives to meet the loser of Game 6 between Mississippi State and Indiana at 8 p.m. ET Wednesday on ESPN.
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