Head coach Andy Stankiewicz’s squad, on paper, seemed outmatched this weekend.
His USC baseball team was six games under .500, facing off against D1Baseball’s No. 2 team in the country. The Trojans were playing at their third “home” ballpark of the season. The odds were against them.
But paper means very little in baseball, as USC (11-15, 6-5 Pac-12) took the first two games against the Oregon State Beavers (21-4, 5-3) in what was supposed to be a three-game set, if not for a Saturday rainout at UC Irvine’s Cicerone Field.
The Trojans displayed their ability to win a 2-1 pitcher’s duel Thursday night, but then come back the next day and bat their way to a 17-4 win.
While USC has consistently been able to perform during junior pitcher Caden Aoki’s starts as of late, it has been a different story for the team’s other starting pitchers.
In their last three Pac-12 series, the Trojans have a 3-0 record with Aoki — who has mustered a 1.50 ERA in those starts — on the mound, but a 2-3 mark with other starters on the bump during weekend games.
Graduate pitcher Jared Feikes — who moved up to pitch the second game of the series for his second start of the season — was much more effective than in his first start, tossing four innings and only giving up one earned run.
It was a “here we go again” moment for Feikes, as he gave up a leadoff home run to Oregon State’s junior infielder Travis Bazzana, who has now slugged a ridiculous five leadoff homers in the last six games. Feikes quickly regained control and seemed to improve as he went along, sitting down the final six batters he faced.
The graduate pitcher’s move up in the rotation is just one in a series of changes Stankiewicz has made to his squad’s pitching staff. Junior pitcher William Watson — a transfer from San Joaquin Delta College this past offseason — and his 2.35 ERA were slated to start on the mound in Saturday’s matchup before it was rained out.
Aoki is the only weekend starter from the Trojans’ opening three games who remains in that role. Senior pitcher Tyler Stromsborg and redshirt sophomore pitcher Eric Hammond — the two Feikes and Watson replaced — had combined for a 7.68 ERA heading into this weekend.
The Trojan bats did exactly what USC needed them to do, given who was on the mound for the team. With how exceptional Aoki has been on the mound as of late, the junior pitcher only needed the two runs of support he garnered.
“Anytime you’ve got Caden Aoki on the bump, you feel good throughout the game,” freshman outfielder Brayden Dowd said in an interview with USC Athletics after Thursday’s win. “We all felt confident in where we were. Obviously, the bats weren’t as hot … but we felt really good with where we were. Energy in the dugout was really good.”
The run support came courtesy of a fourth-inning homer from sophomore infielder Ethan Hedges — his first round tripper all season and his third extra-base hit in five games — and the continuation of Dowd’s breakthrough.
The youth movement on offense continued in the ninth inning, as Dowd came up to the plate with one out and two men on after sophomore outfielder Austin Overn and sophomore catcher Jacob Galloway were hit by pitches, in that order.
Dowd drove in the winning run on a walk-off single, as Overn trotted home while the Trojan dugout sprinted out to celebrate the biggest hit of the freshman’s career thus far. The winning hit came off of the Beavers’ sophomore pitcher Kellan Oakes, who came into the game with six scoreless outings in seven chances.
“I was just mentally preparing for an opportunity like that,” Dowd said. “Anytime you’re playing a really good team like Oregon State, you’ve just gotta do what’s best for the team.”
It could not have been a more different story in the Friday matchup, with USC putting up 17 runs compared to the two runs the day prior.
Every Trojan in the lineup reached base, as five batters recorded multi-hit or multi-walk games. All five of them also had multi-run games, as USC did not struggle to drive in runners on base, only leaving four on the basepaths throughout the entire game.
With their 10-run fifth inning — the most the Trojans have scored in a single frame since 2018 — they put the game out of reach for the No. 2 Beavers.
Now that USC has proven it can win through strong pitching, timely hitting or just putting up a boatload of runs, the next task is to put it all together. While they had a similar 13-run margin in their opening game last weekend to UCLA, the Trojans followed that up with two straight losses to their rivals.
But USC — with a midweek win over Fresno State on Tuesday — is winners of three straight and has proven its mettle against the top of the Pac-12. Inconsistency has plagued the Trojans all season, but if they can finally break that trend with Stankiewicz making necessary changes to the pitching staff, USC can be a force to be reckoned with.
The Trojans will look to keep the good times rolling with two midweeks before hosting the Washington Huskies for a weekend series at Orange County Great Park.