Bottom Gives Out On Cougars’ Season Usc Sweeps WSU As Lower Five Of Batting Order Fails To Come Through

The black hole of Washington State’s batting order imploded again Friday night and sucked the Cougars’ NCAA Tournament hopes into another dimension.

The bottom five hitters in coach Steve Farrington’s lineup went a collective 2 for 18 and left eight runners on base - including four in scoring position - as WSU let Southern California slip away with a 4-0 victory and the Pacific-10 Conference’s automatic berth in next week’s NCAA Baseball Tournament.

The win gave the regular-season South Division champions a 2-0 sweep in the best-of-three Pac-10 playoff series at Dedeaux Field.

The Trojans, 41-18 and ranked third in the nation by “Baseball America,” got four hits, including a solo home run, from catcher Chad Moeller and scored two unearned runs in the seventh inning to make a hard-luck loser out of WSU starter Kyle Kawabata (11-3).

Kawabata, the senior ace for the North Division champion Cougars, gave up 12 hits and his usual complement of vicious line drives that ended up in the gloves of Cougara defenders. But he pitched the entire game, allowed only one earned run and deserved a better fate.

And the blame for that injustice rests directly on the slumped shoulders and silent bats of the last five in WSU’s batting order, who were also a dreadful 1 for 18 in Thursday night’s opening 9-6 loss.

Farrington said USC’s pitching had something to do with the lack of production at the bottom of his order.

“Better pitching, better spots,” he said after watching his first WSU team finish 28-30 to record the school’s first losing season since 1957 when the Cougars went 14-21 under Buck Bailey. “But it sure helps if you have threats from one to nine in your lineup.

“I thought we should have scored at least three or four runs against these guys tonight because of the offensive situations we had. But either good pitching by them or poor hitting by us - whatever the combination was - it prevented us from getting it done.”

Farrington’s top four hitters managed seven hits off USC starter and winner Rob Tucker (6-2), but ended up either picked off, thrown out stealing or stranded.

Junior right fielder Ken Cameron went 2 for 4 with a bunt single and infield hit and edged Washington’s Jon VanderGriend for the North Division batting title .388 to .385.

But Cameron’s two hits and a pair of wasted singles by cleanup hitter Mike Kinkade were the only things to recommend about WSU’s offense.

“Maybe in a couple of weeks it will mean more,” Cameron said of his batting title, “but right now I would trade it for a win. We played well both games, but things just didn’t work out.”

The Cougars, in trying to force the issue, made Tucker’s job easy in the early going by giving away two outs on the bathpaths.

Cameron, after beating out a twoout, two-strike bunt in the top of the first inning, was picked off. An inning later, Kinkade slipped while trying to steal second and was tagged out in a rundown after trying to retrace his steps.

The Cougars then failed to cash in a splendid scoring chance in the fourth when Tucker pitched out of a no-out, two-on predicament by striking out Ron Naumu and Jim Horner and getting Ty Solomon on a weak fly to right.

WSU had two other runners thrown out at second, one on a botched hit-and-run and another on a straight steal.

“That’s the kind of stuff that got us here,” said Cameron, who led WSU in stolen bases with 20. “We weren’t going to come all the way down here and just sit around and wait for a home run to score.”

USC coach Mike Gillespie had nothing but praise for WSU’s effort after the series and sought out Farrington to tell him that his team belonged in the playoff.

“And he was right,” Farrington said. “We didn’t back down from these people. I wish the results could have been different, but I think we showed how much time and effort we spent in trying to get better during the season.”

Southern Cal 4, Washington St. 0

WSU 000 000 000 - 0 9 2 USC 000 100 21x - 4 12 2

Kawabata and Hamik. Tucker, Garner (8) and Moeller. W-Tucker, 6-2. L-Kawabata, 11-3. Sv-Garner (15). HR-USC, Moeller (4). T-2:58. A-866.