Arizona baseball earned a series sweep over Oakland with a rout on Wednesday afternoon by scoring early and often.
The Wildcats (8-2) beat the Grizzlies (0-8) 13-0 to win the second-straight mid-week series.
Arizona head coach Andy Lopez said he was happy with the game, other than an error in the eighth.
“It was clean, it was very clean,” Lopez said. “It was good to see.”
Arizona designated hitter Riley Moore went 4-for-5 with three RBIs. Second baseman Scott Kingery went 2-for-3 with three runs, two RBIs, two walks and a double.
Arizona center fielder Justin Behnke went 3-for-4, with three runs, two RBIs and a walk. Third baseman Bobby Dalbec had two doubles and two RBIs.
Left fielder Jared Oliva went 2-for-3 with two runs, a double and a walk.
“It’s a neat story, didn’t even play in high school,” Lopez said about Oliva. “Well, he was on the team, … I just told him, ‘You might want to call your high school coach and say, “Hey, having a good time in Tucson.”’”
Arizona took a 1-0 lead on a sacrifice fly by right fielder Zach Gibbons in the second inning. The Wildcats went up 2-0 when Oliva ran home on a wild pitch.
Moore singled with the bases loaded to drive in two runs. Before that at bat, Arizona had been 0-for-9 with the bases loaded this season.
Gibbons led off the fourth inning with a double and got to third on a throwing error. Behnke drove him home with a bunt single.
Kingery doubled to score Behnke. Then Kingery scored on a foul ball fly out by Dalbec.
Oliva scored again on an error in the fifth inning.
Arizona’s first four batters got nine hits, eight RBIs and three doubles.
“That’s what we’re supposed to do,” Moore said. “We’re all upperclassmen, except for Bob. Bob’s a sophomore, but still, he’s got the upperclassman mentality. We all want to win and know this program can win.”
Arizona pitcher Xavier Borde (2-0) started for the Wildcats and went four innings, giving up three hits, zero walks and zero runs while striking out two to earn the win. Cody Moffet relieved him and went two innings, giving up one hit, zero walks and striking out one in his 2015 debut.
“Good to see Moffet pitch well, good to see Borde pitch well,” Lopez said. “Borde will get a start based off of [Wednesday]. The competition is getting good; I like that.”
Arizona pitcher Rio Gomez went two innings, giving up zero hits, zero runs, zero walks and striking out two. Matt Hartman pitched the ninth and gave up one hit in his season debut.
Dalbec doubled to score Kevin Newman in the seventh inning. Behnke got a two-out RBI in the eight inning. Kingery then drove in Behnke and Moore drove in Kingery.
“[Tuesday] we had chances to score in the later innings and didn’t execute,” Kingery said. “We had a lot of two-out hits [on Wednesday] that really helped us put runs on the board, and pitching did a great job, shut ‘em out.”
The Wildcats will now travel to Starkville, Miss., this weekend for a pair of games against Samford and a two-game series with Mississippi State.
Lopez likes to evaluate the team in 10-game segments, and he said he was happy with the Wildcats’ first 10.
“I like the competitiveness a lot,” Lopez said. “Really happy with the competitiveness, the intangible, competitive nature.”
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