BYU at Portland Box Score game 2

PORTLAND, Oregon (April 13, 2018)—Opportune pitching and hitting helped BYU’s baseball team even its series with a 6-2 win at Portland on Friday.

Freshman Mitch McIntyre’s two-out single in the ninth plated Nate Favero for the first of three insurance runs, breaking a drought of six runners stranded in the final five innings.

A big boost for the Cougars came in the sixth inning when Portland loaded the bases with one out as Hayden Rogers (now 5-2) was replaced by Blake Inouye. The BYU reliever struck out the last two batters of the inning.

"I like Blake (Inouye) from the pen more than as a starter," BYU coach Mike Littlewood said. "We needed that from Blake today.

"We did a much better job today. I liked our overall approach. We drew a couple walks and got a couple key hits."

McIntyre led off the third with a double to left field and scored when Brian Hsu rolled a single up the middle to tie the game. Then Brock Hale rocketed a double down the right field line to plate Jarrett Perns for a 2-1 lead.

Hsu’s one-out double off the top of the left field wall drove in Brennon Anderson for a 3-2 lead in the fifth.

BYU stranded runners in scoring position several times, including when Hale hit a one-out double off the left field wall to advance Hsu to third in the seventh and loading the bases in the eighth from three walks.

Among the several defensive BYU gems came when an alert catcher Noah Hill backed up an overthrow to first and fired to third to nab a runner and end the first inning. Rogers picked off the lead-off runner from first in the second. After a batted ball glanced off Rogers, shortstop Daniel Schneemann spun and whirled from shallow centerfield to peg the lead-off runner in the fourth.

BYU improved to 18-14 and 7-7 in the West Coast Conference. Portland is now 12-20 and 5-8.

Saturday’s rubber match starts at noon PDT.

BYU vs. Portland game notes

On the strength of its first league sweep, BYU baseball readies for consecutive road encounters starting this week at Portland.

The Cougars, 17-13 overall, are back in the West Coast Conference race with a 6-6 record. Portland is 11-19 and 4-8.

Veterans Jordan Wood (2-2, 2.65) and Hayden Rogers (4-2, 5.40) are BYU’s respective pitchers on Thursday and Friday in games starting at 6 p.m. PDT. Saturday’s starter for the Cougars is yet to be named in the noon contest.

BYU had to come from behind in all three wins last week against Santa Clara, with rain being a factor. The Cougars should be more prepared to play at Portland on the strength of playing 14 games in Provo on the “new” artificial turf similar to the surface Portland has had for a couple years.

The Cougars have won six games in a row over the Pilots. Portland sophomore Beau Brundage is No. 1 in the league in batting average, hits and on-base percentage. BYU’s Brock Hale leads the league in slugging percentage.

Following the three-game series at Portland, the Cougars travel to Arizona for a Tuesday nonconference game prior to hosting Utah again and a three-game series against San Diego.