College World Series 2017: Power ranking the field

4. Oregon State Beavers

The Oregon State Beavers have been pretty untouchable this year. But one has to consider that they’re in one of the weakest conferences in college baseball. During the earlier days of the College World Series, the Pac-12 was carried by Southern Cal, Stanford, Arizona State and Cal State-Fullerton. With just four losses during the 2017 regular season, the Oregon State Beavers have a chance of being the face of the Pac-12, which has dominated the college baseball scene since the tournament started in the 1940s.

Yes, Oregon State has been lights out, losing only four games this season, but their strength of schedule is one of the easiest in Division I. Only Stanford, UCLA and Arizona would attempt to spook them, but that didn’t stop Oregon State from a 27-3 conference record. In fact, they swept all but three of those aforementioned series (2-1 vs. UCLA).

This birth of success for Oregon State should owe thanks to the downfall of the Pac-12 in 2017. Both Stanford and Arizona would end up losing to BYU and Sam Houston State, respectively, in the Regionals. Overall, the conference has been losing its competitive edge in recent years, so there’s no one to stand up to the bully that is Oregon State.

Oregon State has also had a super comfortable time going through this year’s tournament. Both Yale and Vanderbilt didn’t pose much of a threat, so Oregon State continued to show no mercy. But it’s been that tempo of Oregon State that has a lot of teams cowering in fear.

They have an outstanding first baseman in K.J. Harrison and an excellent collection of pitchers, including Jake Thompson. The team will, however, be without SP Luke Heimlich, who stepped away due to a run-in with the law. To the naked eye, there’s not one reason to think that Oregon State will lose to CS-Fullerton, but there’s a large target on their back.