Where Oregon baseball falls in rankings after series win at Illinois

It was a successful road trip for the Oregon Ducks over the weekend, taking two of three in Illinois ahead of a big week of games back on the West Coast. The Ducks broke out the bats in a hitter-friendly park and slugged their way to another Big Ten series victory, and they'll hope to ride that momentum into a big matchup at Oregon State this week.

Despite the series win, the Ducks didn't move up in the national rankings. The USA TODAY Sports coaches poll dropped the Ducks two spots to No. 21 in the latest edition of the rankings. Although the Ducks improved to 28-11 on the season, they did have to work hard for the series victory over a middling Illinois squad, which likely contributed to their slide. Oregon had to postpone a matchup against Oregon State last week, which could be made up this week when they take on the Beavers in Corvallis. Oregon State stood firm at No. 6 in the poll.

Neither the Ducks nor the Beavers moved in the D1Baseball rankings, which are commonly used by teams as the official rankings. Oregon remained at No. 19, and Oregon State at No. 6.

Oregon continued to swing the bats well, while the pitching staff struggled in a hitter-friendly ballpark with lots of wind pushing fly balls over the wall. The Ducks smacked 11 home runs in the series, three of which came from reigning Big Ten Freshman of the Week Naulivou Lauaki Jr. The Ducks scored at least 11 runs in all three games to support the slumping pitching staff. Illinois won the middle game of the series on a walk-off three-run homer, but Sunday's game highlighted some revelations in the bullpen for the Ducks.

Tanner Bradley has been a go-to for the middle innings out of the bullpen for Mark Wasikowski, and Cooper Markham turned in the best outing of his freshman season in the series finale, tossing two scoreless innings. Although it was only his fifth appearance of the season, the Ducks could rely on him more often as the pitching depth is tested.