| 24 February 2011
Ben Johnson is a former three-time All-PAC-10 shortstop at Oregon State University and was drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1990 MLB Draft. A four-time conference Coach of the Year in the Midwestern and Mt Hood Conferences while leading Sheldon High School and Hood River High School to conference championships, Johnson also coached at Willamette University and served as an Associate Scout with the Kansas City Royals. A featured baseball writer with Beyond the Beat, Johnson is also the creator of College Baseball Stars.com.
We knew entering the year that the Oregon Ducks, Oregon State Beavers and Portland Pilots were loaded with promising pitching prospects up and down the line-up card.
UCLA has arguably the best one-two dynamic duo of any program in American, but it's hard to ignore the quality of arms that comprise the stable of stars for the three Oregon Division I Baseball programs.
Madison Boer earned official PAC-10 Pitcher of the Week honors after throwing a one-hitter over eight innings, giving the Ducks their first taste of victory in 2011 after dropping the first two games of a four-game series with Hawaii over on the islands.
Chris Dennis, the closer for the Pilots and a Pre-Season All-American candidate on many of the college baseball publications, started out with a bang in 2011.
His Pilot teammates swept Middle Tennessee State on the road and Dennis picked up three saves in the process to take the early lead among closers across the country. Already the programs career leader in saves, Dennis made short work of the Blue Raiders, facing just two batters as he walked one and fanned Tyler Acker to end the game on Sunday.
The Oregon State Beavers have some high quality arms who shined in their debuts and a few returning stars coming off major injuries that showed up with promising performances. Although the Beavers lost two of three games at the Fresno State Tournament, the close losses to the Bulldogs give us some inspiration and hope that the Beavers are back.
Fresno State has been listed as a dark-horse to compete this year for the national championship in Omaha, and the back-to-back one run losses demonstrate that if the Beavers can squeeze a little more offense from promising newcomers, the pitching staff can be a force.
Fresno State is one of the better hitting teams in the country and the OSU arms limited them to six hits on Sunday in a 2-1 loss in which Cam Booser made his pitching debut. The youngster went 4.2 innings giving up two runs on five hits with four strikeouts.
On Monday, Josh Osich - who is coming off major surgery in 2010 - had a solid first inning but ran into trouble quickly in the second with some command problems, giving up three runs on two hits with two strikeouts, but his three walks set the table for a big inning.
Tony Bryant and Dan Child threw six solid innings in relief but the Bulldogs earned the win with a walk off single in the ninth. For Bryant, a Sophomore right-hander from Kennewick, the effort was a career best scattering three hits with six strikeouts!
Although the Beavers had 10 hits in Monday's loss, they only accounted for four runs in spite of Fresno's five errors on the day.
This is a solid indication that some of the best pitching in college baseball resides right here in the State of Oregon and as the bats warm up and adjust to the new BBCOR standards, plenty of wins will be found for all three Division I programs.
Get out to a ballpark near you and show your support. If you haven't taken in PK Park's splendor, the Ducks are the only team in town this weekend, taking on St. Mary's of the West Coast Conference on Friday, weather permitting of course.
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