Game 1s are always a battle of aces and Arkansas’ ace Blaine Knight got the better of Oregon State’s Luke Heimlich and the Beavers offense as the Razorbacks won 4-1 to take a 1-0 series lead on Tuesday.
Game Odds
BetDSI Sportsbook has released odds, which you can view below, for this matchup.
Oregon State Beavers -160
Arkansas Razorbacks +120
How it happened
Early on in the game it seemed it was Heimlich’s night as he blanked Arkansas through the first four innings of the game.
Heading into the fifth inning the Razorbacks were held to one hit while the Beavers held a 1-0 lead after a Michael Gretler RBI single in the second inning, but it was fifth where Arkansas got to Heimlich.
After a one-out walk and single, Grant Koch delivered the game tying RBI single. Two batters later with the bases loaded it was Eric Cole taking one for the team to make it 2-1 Arkansas lead.
Casey Martin hit an RBI groundout before Heston Kjerstad walked in a run to make it a 4-1 Razorbacks lead.
His Knight
Coming into Tuesday’s game much of the talk was about Heimlich for both his play on the mound and his off the field issues when he was a teenager.
But after 4 1/3 innings Heimlich’s story was over after giving up four runs, three earned, on three hits, two walks and two hit batters while striking out five.
This night belonged to Knight who worked out of jams and kept the hot hitting Oregon State lineup at bay going six innings and giving up the one run, on seven hits and one walk while striking out six.
Both bullpens were strong as the Beavers turned to Christian Chamberlain for 4 2/3 innings as he gave up two hits and walked five, but also recorded 11 strikeouts.
Barrett Loseke came in for Knight and went two innings and gave up two hits and got three strikeouts for the hold before Matt Cronin tossed the ninth and got save No. 14 with no hits and two strikeouts.
Quite bats
Both teams came into series swinging a hot stick, but the pitching dominated the night.
Arkansas went 5-for-32 at the plate with Koch leading the way going 2-for-3 with an RBI and a run.
The Beavers 9-of-34 with Trevor Larnach going 2-for-4 with a double and a run while Adley Rutschman was 2-for-4 as well.
