Iowa baseball team gets quacked around Thursday night

IOWA CITY - Welp. That didn’t go well.

Or the full nine innings.

Iowa’s baseball team got smacked around and quacked around Thursday night by Oregon in the first game of this big Big Ten Conference regular season-ending series. The fifth-ranked Ducks hit four home runs and received superb starting pitching from Grayson Grinsell in a 10-0 win that disappointed the 2,475 fans at Banks Field.

That’s minus the 20 or so Oregon fans in the house.

“They played well tonight,” said Iowa Coach Rick Heller. “It wasn’t like we played poorly. We had good energy, we were locked in. We hadn’t had a game like that really all season long. That team just came out and beat you.”

Oregon (39-13 overall) pulled within a game of Iowa (32-18) for first place in the Big Ten, with the teams scheduled to play again Friday night and Saturday afternoon. The Hawkeyes are 21-7 in conference play, the Ducks 20-8.

Northwestern did both teams a huge solid Thursday night by beating UCLA in California. The Bruins are tied with Oregon now conference wise, unable to inch their way into a first-place tie.

If Iowa doesn’t regroup immediately from this one, however, it’s a moot point. Oregon looked really, really, really good here, has won eight games in a row and 12 of 13.

Carter Garate, Oregon’s ninth-place hitter, had a grand slam in the fourth inning as the Ducks built a 6-0 lead. It was just his second home run this season.

Maddox Malony went deep twice for Oregon, with he and teammate Ryan Cooney going deep oppo to right (where the wind was blowing out strongly) in the top of the seventh inning to set up an early ending. Iowa ace Cade Obermueller gave up eight hits and eight runs in five innings.

“He didn’t have his best fastball tonight, he didn’t have his best slider tonight,” Heller said. “He went out and competed for us. Unfortunately he ran into a team that was seeing it well and getting hits.

“What do you say? Tip your hat. They swung it well tonight.”

Fellow southpaw Grinsell, meanwhile, was outstanding. He pitched out of a two-on jam in the bottom of the first inning, then settled in, giving up just two hits and a walk, striking out eight in the complete game.

You figured Grinsell would be a problem for an Iowa lineup with a bunch of lefties, which he was. He rarely gets to 90 miles per hour with his fastball but gets good extension on it and hides the baseball well in his delivery, which makes it play up, Heller said.

Regular starter Ben Wilmes did not play Thursday because of an injury.

Iowa has won just one of its last eight games, though you can throw a tie in there against nationally ranked Oregon State last weekend when the teams went to extra innings and the game could not be completed because OSU needed to get to the Des Moines airport for its flights home.

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