In its first weekend series since being swept on the road by No. 5 Texas, the Stanford baseball team had a number of close calls at home against UC-Santa Barbara. By the end of the weekend, the No. 24 Cardinal (7-4) managed to pull out a 2-1 series win over the Gauchos (4-4).
The series began on Friday evening with sophomore Jordan Pries starting on the mound against Mario Hollands for UCSB. After giving up two runs in the first inning, Pries settled down and pitched a scoreless second, third and fourth inning. After giving up two more runs in the fifth, Pries was pulled from the game in favor of freshman Chris Jenkins.
Meanwhile, Stanford’s offense was anemic for the first three innings, scoring no runs off Hollands. In the fourth and fifth innings, the bats came alive for the Card – it scored four runs to knock Hollands out of the game.
After scoring one run apiece in the seventh inning, the two teams entered the ninth inning tied 5-5. After freshman pitcher Mark Appel held the Gauchos scoreless in the eighth and ninth innings, Stanford came to bat in the bottom of the ninth looking for a walk-off victory.
With the game on the line, the Cardinal sent in junior pinch hitter Jonathan Kaskow to face UCSB pitcher Connor Whalen with two outs and runners on first and third. Kaskow hit a hard single down the line to drive in freshman Stephen Piscotty and give Stanford the win, 6-5.
While it was able to pull out the victory, the Cardinal still had significant deficiencies both offensively and defensively. The top four of the Stanford order combined for just one hit and no RBIs in 16 at-bats.
The defensive struggles of the Cardinal infield also continued. Junior second baseman Colin Walsh and freshman third baseman Kenny Diekroeger both committed errors in the game. Diekroeger’s fielding has been especially poor – through Saturday’s game, he has a .905 fielding percentage for the season.
On Saturday, the Card came back for another closely contested game. It fell behind early to the Gauchos – junior starting pitcher Scott Snodgress only pitched 2.1 innings and gave up two runs on two hits and four walks – and found itself down 4-1 at the end of the fourth inning.
However, sophomore reliever Brian Busick, who came into the game in the fourth inning with the bases loaded, was almost flawless for Stanford. In six innings of work, Busick gave up only one hit and no walks or runs, while striking out six batters.
“I just felt like I needed to come in, throw strikes and keep us in the game,” he said. “Eventually we’d come back and score some runs to get back into it.”
“I didn’t expect to stay in that long, but I was going to do whatever I could to help us win,” he continued.
Junior pitcher Alex Pracher was also strong, giving up only one hit and no runs in 1.2 innings in relief of Busick.
The Cardinal offense also found a way to come back from its deficit. It scored two runs in the fifth inning and one more in the eighth to draw even at 4-4. After neither team scored in the ninth inning, the game went to extras.
After a scoreless 10th inning, Pracher held UCSB to no runs in the top of the 11th. In the bottom of the 11th, junior shortstop Jake Schlander hit the first pitch from David Meals over the left field wall to give the Cardinal a 5-4 victory and its second walk-off win in two days. Up to that point, Schlander had been very quiet, with no hits in four at-bats.
The final game of the series was very different from the first two, with UCSB winning a 26-run slugfest by a final score of 15-11.
The Gauchos started the game off very strongly, blasting sophomore Stanford starter Brett Mooneyham for six runs in the first inning. Mooneyham was removed from the game after pitching just 0.1 innings. He gave up four hits, six earned runs and three walks on 36 pitches.
Stanford’s pitching for the rest of the game remained ineffective. After Mooneyham, the Card used a succession of six pitchers. With the exception of Pracher, every Stanford pitcher gave up at least one earned run.
Meanwhile, the Cardinal’s offensive production was highly inconsistent. Apart from an eight-run outburst in the sixth inning, Stanford was shut down by UCSB’s pitching, scoring no runs in the last three innings. The Cardinal offense was led by freshman right fielder Tyler Gaffney and designated hitter Adam Gaylord, who each had three RBIs.
“When you’re behind, there’s a mentality that you need to keep going,” Gaffney said. “Not all at once, but here and there get some runs.”
When asked about the sixth-inning rally, he said, “We got some momentum, we picked it up from there and eight runs came out of that inning.”
Head coach Mark Marquess felt that offense made the difference for the game.
“They just outslugged us today,” said head coach Mark Marquess. “We couldn’t get them out. They did a great job with the bats.”
“We just dug ourselves in a hole that was too big of a hole to get out of,” he continued.
Marquess also highlighted command and control as an area for improvement for his pitching staff. Stanford pitchers surrendered 10 walks during the course of the game.
The team will take next weekend off for finals. Its next games are a weekend series at Sunken Diamond against Pepperdine on Mar. 19, 20 and 21. The Waves are currently 4-7 and have four more games before visiting The Farm. The games will start at 6:30 p.m., 2 p.m. and 1 p.m. respectively.