Arizona baseball is back in action this weekend, playing another road series, as the Wildcats travel to Corvallis, Ore., for a three-game series against the Oregon State Beavers. Arizona (23-11, 8-7 Pac-12 Conference) faces the Beavers after a 7-2 win over ASU.
OSU (23-11, 6-6 Pac-12) is coming off a series loss at Oregon as it returns home for the first time since March 29. The last two series the teams faced each other were home games for Arizona.
Cody Hamlin (4-1) will remain on the mound on Friday for Arizona, and Andrew Moore (3-1) will pitch for OSU. Moore has four Pac-12 appearances and a 0.58 ERA in 31 innings of conference play. Moore also has four walks and 28 strikeouts and has only surrendered 19 hits in conference play. He gave up only six hits in 15 innings and recorded 15 strikeouts during his last two starts, in which he faced UCLA and Oregon.
Arizona baseball coach Andy Lopez said Nathan Bannister, one of the relief pitchers, will most likely be in the rotation this weekend after solid performances at ASU. With a new pitching rotation, Arizona has moved former Sunday starter Tyger Talley to a closing position. The goal for the team is to find guys who can throw more innings and hand the ball over to guys like Talley to take care of business in late situations.
Arizona’s offense was the strong point during the ASU series. The offensive leaders are Scott Kingery, Kevin Newman and Bobby Dalbec going into the OSU series. Kingery leads the nation with a .463 batting average to go along with four home runs and 29 RBIs. Newman is second on the team in batting average at .390 and tied for third with 28 RBIs.
Dalbec, who helped the team stay hopeful during the last game at ASU, is leading the conference with 10 home runs and is also expected to be on the mound on Sunday. He is hitting .343 and holds on to a 3.52 ERA after his last game pitched at ASU, in which he hit two home runs offensively and pitched 4.1 innings on the mound.
Arizona continues to lead the conference in batting, hitting .324 as a team.
The offensive leaders for the Beavers are KJ Harrison, Kyle Nobach and Jack Anderson.
The three players are hitting above .300 and Harrison leads the Beavers with seven home runs on the season. Nobach will go into Friday’s game with a team-leading five-game hit streak. Nobach is 7-for-20 during his hit streak and has recorded four runs and six RBIs.
The first pitch for Friday’s game is scheduled for 5:35 p.m., Saturday at 4:05 p.m. and Sunday at 1:05 p.m. The games will not be televised, but a free live stream of the games is offered at osubeavers.com.
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