No. 13 Oregon baseball’s bullpen collapses, again, in 2nd loss to Portland this season

For the second time this month, No. 13 Oregon’s bullpen collapsed in a stunning loss to Portland.

With the Ducks holding a five-run lead after six, relievers Ryan Featherston and Seth Mattox each allowed three runs in a 10-9 loss to the Pilots Tuesday night at PK Park.

“We’re doing everything that we can to be able to put people in situations to succeed right now,” Oregon coach Mark Wasikowski said. “We’re obviously not doing a good enough job of it.”

Right field Brady Bean’s three-run home run on an 0-2 pitch off Mattox with two outs in the eighth put Portland (18-23) ahead and proved to be the difference.

Oregon (27-12), which was coming off a series win over UCLA — its best two wins of the season, lost both meetings in the season series with Portland for the first time since 2018.

“At surface value, we didn’t throw the ball over the plate good enough to win the game,” Wasikowksi said. “I would imagine we probably didn’t win the strike-throwing contest from what it feels like.

“There were some things that I thought we did very well tonight, some things obviously we didn’t do well enough and we didn’t play enough to win the game. They did. Every time we scored, they scored.”

The Ducks took a 5-0 lead in the first thanks to an RBI single by Jacob Walsh and two-run singles from Anson Aroz and Ryan Cooney.

Zach Toglia hit a two-run home run in the second to put the Pilots on the board.

The Ducks got the runs back in the third on a balk and Drew Smith RBI single that made it 7-2.

Will Sanford (four runs on two hits and five walks in 3 1/3 innings) walked the bases loaded with one out in the fourth and was relieved by Featherston, who threw a wild pitch to allow one run to score and allowed an RBI ground out.

Oregon got its lead back to five on an RBI bunt and ground out in the sixth.

A leadoff double and back-to-back two-out walks by Featherston loaded the bases in the seventh and Doyle Kane hit an RBI single and Toglia followed by driving in a pair to make it 9-7. Featherston allowed three runs on four hits and two walks with five strikeouts in 3 1/3 IP.

“He’s got two seeing-eyes balls that get through the infield,” Wasikowski said. “Ryan did a tremendous job with what he had. He deserved those opportunities.”

Mattox (2-1) entered in the eighth, which he opened by allowing a single and walk. After two outs, Bean launched the go-ahead homer to left.

The Ducks stranded two in the eighth and one in the ninth in their second Quadrant 4 home loss of the season.

“Nine should be enough to win,” Wasikowksi said. “I think that’s pretty simple; but it wasn’t enough to win. When you need to score 11 to win, you need to score 11 to win.”

Oregon hosts a three-game series with No. 3 Oregon State beginning at 5 p.m. Friday.