Logan Mercado threw the best game of his career and Oregon clinched a series win over No. 7 Stanford.
The Ducks junior right-hander tied his career best with seven strikeouts and allowed one run on five hits and a walk in a complete game 8-1 win over the Cardinal Saturday afternoon in front of 2,322 at PK Park.
“Logan Mercado’s bulldog mentality set the tone, and the guys in the dugout were just feeding off of his energy,” Oregon coach Mark Wasikowski said. “It’s just a ton of fun to be around these guys right now.”
A week after he limited Oregon State to one run over 5.0 innings in a no-decision, Mercado threw Oregon’s second straight complete game to seal the series after Jace Stoffal’s shutout Friday night.
“We joke about it in the locker room as starters, like, I guess I’ve gotta one up you,” Mercado said. “Unfortunately I didn’t. But I came pretty close.”
Jacob Walsh and Sabin Ceballos each had three RBIs and homered, twice in Walsh’s case, to power the Oregon (24-9, 9-5 Pac-12) offense.
Drew Cowley doubled in Rikuu Nishida and Ceballos drove in a run in the third, Walsh hit a solo homer in the fourth and Ceballos (3 for 4) hit a two-run shot in the fifth to give the Ducks a 5-0 lead.
Carter Graham hit an RBI single in the sixth off Mercado, who retired the first 12 Cardinal batters.
Walsh got the run back in the bottom of the inning with his second solo home run.
Matt Scott allowed six runs on eight hits, a walk and two hit batters over 5.1 innings for Stanford (22-10, 10-4).
Mercado worked around leadoff singles in the eighth and ninth and held the Cardinal to just 1 for 9 with runners in scoring position.
“He’s coming into his own,” Wasikowski said. “Credit to (pitching coach Jake) Angier — he’s been patient with Logan. A lot of coaches probably would have quit on Logan a couple of weeks ago, after he got roughed up in the desert (allowing 10 runs on April 1 at Arizona). And he didn’t; he kept with him and he kept getting better and improving, and there were some subtle things that he kept working on. And you know, the results showed up again today, which is fantastic for our ballclub.”
The Ducks will go for the series sweep at noon Sunday.
