Duke baseball unloads on Oklahoma State

Georgia awaits in winner's bracket.

Did Duke baseball get its mojo back?

We won’t know the answer until the Blue Devils square off against Georgia in Saturday.s winner’s bracket.

Stormy weather dominated much of the opening day of the tournament. If you’re looking for that Duke game at 6 P.M. on ESPNU, sorry about that.

But Mother Nature didn’t provide all of the fireworks. Georgia mauled Binghampton 20-4 in the opener. No surprise there. Then again, some top seeds didn’t maul those opposing four seeds, including overall top-seed Vanderbilt, who had to come from behind late against Wright State. Oregon State and Southern Miss both hosted and lost and Oregon is losing as I’ve hit both my bedtime and my patience for overly-long reviews.

In other words, there’s something to be said for taking care of business.

Two-seed/ three-seed games are always unpredictable. But OK State saved their best arms for later in the tournament. Not sure if they were dissing Duke but I’ll take it.

Massive Oklahoma State starter Mario Pesca made it through the first but the wheels came off in the second and then the chassis came off in the third. Duke put up three runs in the second, six in the third and cruised to a 12-5 win.

Max Miller homered for the first time in awhile for the Devils but the big hits were Sam Harris’ two-run double in the second, Tyler Albright’s two-run homer in the third and Jake Berger’s two-run dinger later than inning.

Jake Hyde’s bases-loaded triple in the fifth brought in three and made it 12-1.

Duke starter Owen Prosch gave his team six solid innings, allowing only two runs, one of his best outings of the season, one that largely set up Duke’s bullpen for Georgia.

Why the qualifier? I have no idea what Duke’s plans were for relief ace Reid Easterly going into the game. He hadn’t pitched in a week so it makes sense to get him some work. But after Ryan Calvert gave up three runs in the eighth, Duke had to bring in Easterly for the final five outs.

He retired all five batters he faced, striking out the side in the ninth.

But I have a feeling Duke is going to need a lot from Easterly tomorrow and the rest of the weekend.

Still, he only threw 23 pitches so the gas tank should be close to full moving forward.

It looks like the weather has cleared for Saturday and all should be go for 6 P.M. Maybe we’ll even be able to watch it on TV.