There was a heartbreaker on the field — and an uplifting sigh of relief off the field — Wednesday night in Reno.
JR Freethy belted a walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth inning, helping the Nevada Wolf Pack complete a stunning 11-10 comeback victory over the sloppy Oregon State Beavers in the finale of a two-game series at Peccole Park.
But a frustrating midweek nonconference defeat did little to dampen the brightest news of the day: Travis Bazzana, it appears, has escaped major injury.
The Beavers on Wednesday declined to provide an update about the nature of Bazzana’s injury and his long-term playing status. But, according to the team’s radio broadcast, the Golden Spikes Award candidate merely suffered a muscle contusion on his left hand when he was hit by a pitch in the third inning of Tuesday night’s series opener. The hope, OSU play-by-play announcer Mike Parker said during Wednesday’s broadcast, is that Bazzana will return after the swelling in his hand subsides, which could come during this weekend’s three-game Pac-12 series at Cal.
As for the play on the field Wednesday, well, the fifth-ranked Beavers left a lot to be desired.
Laif Palmer endured a rocky first career start, the defense committed a pair of backbreaking late-game errors, closer Bridger Holmes allowed his first earned run of the season and Oregon State squandered a four-run, eighth-inning lead on the way to a head-scratching defeat.
Things went sideways early, as Palmer, the hard-throwing freshman right-hander, coughed up four runs in the first inning on back-to-back Nevada home runs — including a three-run shot from Taylor Holder — to stake the Wolf Pack a 4-1 lead. But it didn’t last three innings.
The Beavers’ offense erupted for seven runs in the fourth inning, as Gavin Turley smashed his fourth grand slam of the season and Elijah Hainline ripped an RBI double to give OSU an 8-4 lead. By the bottom of the eighth, the lead was 10-6 and the Beavers were seemingly heading toward a midweek sweep.
Then things fell apart.
Reliever AJ Hutcheson allowed back-to-back walks to open the inning and the Wolf Pack loaded the bases with no outs on a Hainline error, setting up a big Nevada inning. Before you knew it, with a Josh Catacutan two-run single here, a Mason Hirata groundout there, and a costly Tanner Smith throwing error in between, the game was inexplicably tied 10-10.
After the Beavers went down quietly in the top of the ninth, when they could only muster a harmless leadoff walk by Hainline, coach Mitch Canham turned to his dominant closer to force extra innings. But Freethy crushed a leadoff homer to deep right field off Holmes, and the Beavers (30-6) walked away with their second nonconference defeat of the season.
It was the first earned run Holmes (2-1, eight saves) has allowed at Oregon State.
Turley finished 2 for 5 with four RBIs and two runs scored, Mason Guerra went 2 for 5 with a double, triple and RBI and Hainline had two hits and two RBIs for the Beavers. But it wasn’t enough on a night that saw Nevada (15-18) score the final seven runs of the game.
The only saving grace of a night to forget: Bazzana appears to have avoided serious injury.
Next up: The Beavers open a three-game series against the Cal Bears Friday at 6:05 p.m. at Evans Diamond.
— Joe Freeman | jfreeman@oregonian.com | 503-294-5183 | @BlazerFreeman | Subscribe to The Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.