Leake goes the distance for ASU

By Brooks Hatch

For the Democrat-Herald

CORVALLIS - Of all the first-round draft choices to pitch at Goss Stadium over the past decade - Barry Zito, Mark Prior, Tim Lincecum, Brandon Morrow, Craig Hansen, Joe Smith, Greg Reynolds, Jeremy Guthrie and Daniel Schlereth, to name a few - none looked as effective as Mike Leake did on Friday in a 4-2 victory over Oregon State.

The Arizona State junior right-hander, a near-certain first-round choice in June, toyed with OSU for eight innings and gutted through a hairy ninth to win his seventh consecutive start and eighth consecutive decision.

The result was a 3-hit masterpiece that moved the Sun Devils (33-9, 16-3) one step closer to a Pacific-10 Conference threepeat, and handed the fading Beavers (25-12, 9-7) their fifth loss in their last seven conference games.

"I just hit my spots the whole game. They're a good-hitting team, but I was able to keep them off-balance," Leake (12-1) said. "They showed in the last inning they can come back and they're not going to give up."

But OSU's last-ditch rally fell short by a few feet on warning-track sacrifice flies by Adalberto Santos and Koa Kahalehoe and by two runs on the scoreboard.

Pitcher and hitter each thought Santos' bases-loaded, slicing fly ball with no outs in the ninth would land in the right-field bleachers for a game-tying grand slam. However, it died at the track and Ryan Newman made a nice catch to turn a potential two-run double into a sacrifice fly.

Kahalehoe followed with another long sac fly to left, cutting the lead to 4-2. But Michael Miller hit into a force out to end the game in a neat 2 hours, 15 minutes, and send the regular-season record crowd of 3,129 home disappointed.

"He's good, and if he missed, he missed low," Santos said. "Other pitchers, if they make a mistake it's usually high and something you can capitalize on it."

ASU manufactured a single run in the first and two more in the third, aided by a hit batsman, a misplayed bunt and an error. Drew Maggi's third run made it 4-0 in the fifth and ASU looked home-free as Leake sailed along, retiring 12 of 13 batters from the fifth through eighth innings.

Leake walked Ryan Ortiz to open the ninth on his 121st pitch. Stefen Romero banged a double off the left-field tarp and Jared Norris was hit on a 2-2 pitch, loading the bases for Santos. His rainbow to deep right ran out of steam at the warning track, though, and Newman hauled it in and held on as he glanced off the wall.

The series resumes at 5 p.m. today.

Arizona State 4, Oregon State 2

Arizona State . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 010 000 - 4 7 1

Oregon State . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000 000 002 - 2 3 1

Leake and Ramirez. Robles, Nygren (6), Osich (7), Grbavac (8) and Ortiz. WP: Leake (12-1). LP: Robles (0-1). 2B: Maggi (ASU), Romero (OSU).

Hits: Arizona State 7 (Maggi 2, Wilson, Newman, Ri. Torrez, Calhoun, Ra. Torrez). Oregon State 3 (Romero 2, Wong).

RBIs: Arizona State 3 (Wilson, Ramirez, Newman). OSU 2 (Santos, Kahalehoe).

Oregon 3, UCLA 2

EUGENE - A solid outing from Erik Stavert led the Ducks to a series opening victory over UCLA on Friday afternoon at PK Park.

Stavert (5-3) picked up his fifth win of the season by pitching eight innings of one-run baseball and allowing just six hits while dealing eight strikeouts.

Oregon left fielder Curtis Raulinaitis led off the bottom of the fourth with a double and moved to third on KC Serna's deep fly out to left. Paul Eshleman sent a slow dribbler toward the right side that Bruin second baseman Eddie Murray failed to field cleanly, allowing Raulinaitis to cross the plate, giving the Ducks a 1-0 advantage.

The Ducks manufactured another run in the bottom of the sixth to take a 2-0 lead.

With the score 2-1 in the bottom of the eighth, Oregon's Caleb Tommasini was hit by a pitch, and advanced to third on a sacrifice and an error. He scored on a sacrifice fly by Serna.

The Bruins added a run in the top of the ninth as Oregon closer Drew Gagnier came on to close things out for Stavert. Gagnier struck out the first two batters and was one strike away from ending the game before walking Gallego. Two batters later Murray's RBI single to left scored Gallego, but Gagnier held on for his seventh save of the season by striking out Dunlap.

OREGON 3, UCLA 2

UCLA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000 000 101 - 2 7 3

Oregon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000 101 01x - 3 6 0

Stavert, Gagnier (9) and Karraker. Cole and Rodriguez. W: Stavert (5-3). L: Cole (4-4). S: Gagnier (7). 2B: UCLA, Haerther, Cohen, Gallego. UO, Raulinaitis.

Hits: UCLA 7 (Murray, Decker, Haerther 2, Cohen, Gallego); Oregon 6 (Tommasini, Raulinaitis, Serna, Eshleman 2, Hogan).

RBIs: UCLA 2 (Murray, Gallego); Oregon 1 (Serna).