Oregon State’s Tyler Malone came to Omaha with five home runs in 45 games this season. After the week he has had at TD Ameritrade Park he might have to be dragged back to Corvallis. In the third inning of the winner-plays-for-a-title elimination game against Mississippi State, the true sophomore from Roseville, California uncorked a three-run shot six rows up Section 133 in right-center field to cap off a five-run, two-out rally that proved to be enough to send the Beavers to 2018 College World Series Finals with a 5-2 win over the Bulldogs on Saturday night.
“It was a fastball, I think middle, middle away,” Malone said of the 3-1 pitch he got from Mississippi State left-hander Ethan Small. “It was right after a curveball he threw in the dirt. In that situation I kind of geared up for the fastball because of the count … I knew I hit it good, but to right-center in this park — especially with the wind coming in a little bit — I wasn’t positive right off the bat, but I knew I hit it well.”
The heater that Malone blasted back to Oregon State’s campus came was the sophomore’s series-leading third long ball in Omaha. A more than modest effort for a guy who was only used as a pinch-hitter for the first two games of the tournament, but has found his way in the middle of timely at-bat after timely at-bat during his team’s four-game run through the loser’s bracket.
“He’s always had the aptitude to hit, and he’s a guy we always thought would hit,” Oregon State head coach Pat Casey said. “We saw him hit in high school, and I thought this guy could come in and be an eventual three-hole hitter. I still believe that he can do that.”
The third-inning onslaught seemed unlikely the way Small was going on the mound. He mowed through the top of Oregon State’s lineup in order in the first inning. In the second, he allowed two singles and a balk to put runners on second and third with nobody out, but retired the next three hitters he faced — starting with a harmless pop fly from Malone — to strand the threat. He even started the third inning off with a strikeout and a ground out before the Beavers broke through.
A Cadyn Grenier double. A Trevor Larnach single. RBI singles by Adley Rutschman and Michael Gretler. Then the three-run jack by Malone. Five batters, five runs, 20 pitches. All with two outs. And it was all they would need.
“One thing that stands out about [Oregon State] is they hit mistakes really well,” Small said. “I pitched against Florida, Arkansas, all those teams, and something all those teams have in common is they hit bad pitches or pitches that are left over the middle. I made a few of those and they hit them. Hats off to them. … I competed the best I could, but you just come up short sometimes.”
Small’s margin for error on Saturday was, well, like his name. That’s because his counter part in Kevin Abel was not giving Mississippi State hitters much to work with all night. Oregon State’s freshman right-hander allowed only one run on three hits — all singles — over seven innings of work to earn his sixth win of the season. The San Diego, California product struck out five hitters, and used 12 swinging strikes to help him only allow three free passes despite eight 3-ball counts.
“The changeup felt really good the first couple of innings,” Abel said. “I kind of lost it in the middle of the game, but it came back to me in the sixth and seventh … the curveball was hit or miss today, but fastball location and fastball command was probably the biggest thing. When I had that, they didn’t do any damage. When I didn’t, I walked them and gave them opportunities to get runs. But when I made pitches, my defense made plays behind me.”
Did they ever.
Abel was good, but he did need help behind him at times in order to protect the lead. With two outs in the fifth inning, the Beavers executed the relay from left fielder Kyle Nobach to shortstop Cadyn Grenier to second baseman Nick Madrigal to gun down Mississippi State lead-off man Jake Mangum at second to end the inning and prevent the Bulldogs from bringing the heart of the order up with a pair of runners in scoring position.
With one out in the sixth inning and runners already at second and third, right fielder Elijah MacNamee barreled up a hard liner right at Grenier, who then whipped it over to Madrigal for the force out at second to complete the inning-ending, rally-killing double play.
The Bulldogs mustered one final comeback attempt with their season on the line in the bottom of the ninth. But with one run already across and the bases loaded with two outs, nine-hole hitter Jordan Westburg — who hit a grand slam earlier in the week against North Carolina — grounded a 1-2 pitch to Grenier for a game-ending fielder’s choice. The Beaver hurdled the dugout fence, flipped their gloves, and celebrated their four-game run through the loser’s bracket to earn a date in the championship series against the fifth-seeded Arkansas Razorbacks.
“We’re proud of our club to fight through the loser’s bracket and get the opportunity to fight for a national championship,” Casey said. “It’s special.”
The Beavers won back-to-back national titles under Casey in 2006 and 2007, defeating North Carolina both times. Arkansas has never won a national championship in baseball. They reached the title game back in 1979, but fell by a score of 2-1 to Augie Garrido’s Cal State Fullerton club. It was the first of five national championship that the late, great former skipper would eventually win.
Recent history is working in Arkansas’ favor as Omaha has crowned a first-time College World Series champion in each of the previous five seasons. Game 1 between the third-seeded Beavers (53-11-1) and fifth-seeded Razorbacks (47-19) is set for Monday night at 6:00 p.m.