LA GRANDE, Ore. – The T-Birds (20-8, 14-3) earned an emphatic series win on Sunday afternoon, as they piled up the runs in a pair of mercy rule blowouts over Eastern Oregon (8-19, 5-12).
Scorelines of 15-3 and 14-2 mean that the 'Birds scored an astounding 60 runs in their four-game series in La Grande, and have 95 in their last seven games overall – an average of 1.8 runs per inning played during that span.
A total of six Thunderbirds recorded at least three hits over the course of Sunday's doubleheader, led by
Kansai Sugimoto who had five.
Braeden Scott had seven RBIs to lead the team in that category, including a grand slam late in the second game to put the exclamation point on the contest and the series as a whole.
GAME ONE
Myles Chamberlain was dealing on the mound to start the day, allowing just two hits and two walks in five shutout innings in what turned out to be his fifth win of the season.
While there weren't any fireworks in the first couple of innings, that all changed in a third frame that featured an explosion of offence from UBC. The T-Birds totalled 15 at-bats before the Mountaineers could get three outs, nearly batting around the order twice and putting 10 runs on the board.
The damage started off a throwing error from the EOU third baseman that came with the bases loaded and one out, turning a potential force-out at home into both
Lou Fujiwara and
Oliver Clements safely crossing the plate.
What followed was a series of RBI singles and stolen bases, as Scott,
Kellen Bourne and
Matt Vanslyke all brought home runners with hits. Fujiwara – who'd led off the inning with a double – then came back to the plate and managed an RBI bunt single, bringing home
Calvin Warrillow and beating out the throw at first to make it 7-0 with still just one out on the board.
A passed ball and a two-RBI single from Sugimoto completed the carnage, as the T-Birds exited the inning up double digits and all of a sudden in complete control.
The Mountaineers didn't get any runs on the board until the bottom of the sixth, at which point the scoreboard read 15-0 following some more bursts of UBC offence – headlined by a three-run homer by
David Krahn in the fifth. A pair of RBI doubles from Jaxon Logsdon and Andrew Demianew in the final two innings provided some form of consolation for the hosts, but didn't put any serious dent into the T-Birds' margin of victory.
GAME TWO
The blue and gold spread their offence a bit more evenly in the second game of the day, putting multiple runs on the board in four of the seven innings played.
That included a two-run second, beginning with a balk called on EOU starting pitcher Jayden Butler that advanced Bourne from third to home.
Jordan Stewart then fired an RBI single on the same at-bat to double the UBC advantage.
The 'Birds continued some sweet symmetry in the following innings, scoring three runs in the third and four in the fourth. Scott and Vanslyke brought home the runners with a pair of RBI singles in the third, before a Sugimoto RBI single was followed by yet another three-run Krahn bomb in the fourth.
Scott made it 14 runs on the board in the sixth with his aforementioned grand slam, coming immediately after Bourne had brought home Clements on a bases loaded single. In all, Scott was directly involved in eight of the T-Birds' 14 runs in the game, either through bringing home runners on a hit or crossing the plate himself.
Daniel Orfaly had a clean five innings of work on the mound, allowing just one run off a Jace Nagler solo homer in the bottom of the third. After allowing 11 runs in the series opener on Saturday, the Thunderbirds' defence gave up just 10 in the next three games combined to help take the series.
UBC will be back at home inside Tourmaline West Stadium next weekend, as they take on Warner Pacific (10-18, 5-12) in a four-game series on Saturday, March 28 and Sunday, March 29. The 'Birds swept the Knights on the road in Portland back at the beginning of the month.
