By Sean Ryan
CollegeBaseballInsider.com Co-Founder
OMAHA, Neb. – When he was a junior at Bryant High School in Arkansas, Blaine Knight completed a magical season with an 11-0 record and a state championship ring.
Tuesday night on college baseball’s grandest stage, Arkansas’ junior righthander pitched well enough to beat Oregon State to improve to 14-0 and put the Razorbacks one win from a national title.
In a game that mixed a couple doses of wacky and wild with splendid pitching that was dominant at times, Arkansas used a four-run fifth inning to slip past Oregon State 4-1 in the first game of the College World Series Championship Series. With one more win, the Razorbacks (48-19) will capture their first national championship in baseball. The Beavers (53-12-1) will need to win Wednesday to force a deciding game Thursday in the best-of-three final round.
“Baseball is a little different game sometimes,” Razorbacks coach Dave Van Horn said. “And you can have eight innings where you don’t do much, and you put together one inning and you pitch good enough and play defense, you can win.”
Knight, as he has done all season, had a lot to do with it.
A third-round pick of the Baltimore Orioles, Knight turned in six solid innings, limiting a red-hot Oregon State offense to seven hits and one earned run with six strikeouts.
“They battled, tried to drive up my pitch count, and I was able to execute pitches when the jams came along and just get out of them,” Knight said.
Added battery-mate Grant Koch, who went 2 for 3 with a run and an RBI: “He never gives an inch on the mound. He’s thrown any pitch in any situation, and obviously he has amazing stuff. Obviously, the talent is there, but what separates Blaine is his mentality, his work ethic.”
Knight wiggled out of a couple jams early in quieting a Beavers offense that entered the game averaging 9.6 runs and a .351 average in Omaha.
In the second inning, Michael Gretler singled to left to score Trevor Larnach, who had opened the inning with a first-pitch double to the corner in right. With runners on first and second, Knight struck out Kyle Nobach and Zak Taylor to keep it 1-0.
Knight saved his best escape for the fourth inning, when Larnach again doubled (his CWS-record fifth in Omaha) and advanced to third on Adley Rutschman’s single. Tyler Malone then hit a sharp grounder to first baseman Jared Gates, who fired to second for the force, but the return throw was late as Larnach crossed home for an apparent two-run lead.
But as Rutschman approached second, he slowed down and ducked rather than sliding. Shortstop Jax Biggers appeared to hesitate on the return throw to first because Knight was slow to get off the mound just as Rutschman arrived, and second base umpire Chris Coskey ruled interference and an automatic double play, taking the run off the board and planting Larnach back at third. Knight struck out Gretler to end the inning still down 1-0.
“It appeared Rutsch was doing everything he could to get out of the way,” Beavers coach Pat Casey said. “The ball left the guy’s hand. They weren’t near one another, so I don’t agree with the call…it’s certainly not something that I’m going to say that affected us or affected the game.
“Well, it did affect that inning. We had that run taken off the board right there, so that makes it tough. We’ve got a guy on first base with a two-run lead and one out, so everybody can look at the tape and decide for themselves what they think.”
Arkansas seized on the shift in momentum.
With one out in the top of the fifth, Shaddy walked off Oregon State ace Luke Heimlich (16-3), who had cruised through the first four innings. Gates then bounced a ball over first to put runners on the corners for Koch, who promptly singled in Shaddy to tie the game at 1.
Heimlich then hit Biggers with a 1-2 pitch to load the bases and leadoff man Eric Cole to score Gates. The Razorbacks made it 3-1 when Casey Martin’s slow bouncer was mishandled by second baseman Nick Madrigal, who was caught between tagging the runner coming into second and flipping to second when he lost control of the ball. With the bases still loaded, Christian Chamberlain relieved Heimlich and walked Heston Kjerstad before striking out two – the first two of 11 strikeouts to go with five walks and two hits in 4.2 innings for the lefty – to keep the Beavers in the game.
“As far as the interference call, I think it was a little bit of a momentum shifter,” Knight said. “That gave me a little drive to want to get out of the inning without something happening. It gave me a little boost. And then offensively, we started putting some good at-bats together after that.”
In the big inning, Arkansas had two hits, two walks, two hit batters and four very big runs.
“He lost command of his fastball a little bit and was out of the zone,” Arkansas left fielder Heston Kjerstad said of Heimlich. “So, as a hitter, we’re all just trying to be patient, see him in the zone, and he ended up also missing his spots a few times.”
Casey added, “He started to lose it. He didn’t throw the ball where he needed to…I don’t know, I don’t have an answer for that. He’d been real good all year long and certainly struggled in that inning.”
Knight escaped once more in the fifth, when on review Cadyn Grenier’s line drive down the right-field line was changed from foul to fair and put runners on the corners with two outs. Madrigal lined out to short to end the inning.
Barrett Loseke struck out three and allowed two hits in relief of Knight before turning it over to Razorbacks closer Matt Cronin after Rutschman (2 for 4) singled to open the bottom of the ninth. Matt Cronin entered and struck out two to earn his 14th save.
Arkansas, which was outhit 9-5 and struck out 16 times, now stands one win away from a “Hog Pile.”
“We all know that our season could end at any point, could end in two days,” Koch said. “We all know that. We’re just fighting for one more day, one more game with our guys, so we’re definitely going to come out with a sense of urgency tomorrow.”