The Stanford baseball team fell in the first game of its final series of the season last night, 4-2 to No. 3 Arizona State.
Cardinal pitchers did a fairly good job of keeping the potent Sun Devil offense in check, but Stanford batters could not back up their pitchers.
Sophomore Stanford starter Brett Mooneyham had a strong outing, going seven innings and allowing only three runs while striking out seven, but he received little run support and picked up the loss.
The Cardinal offense got off to a good start, scoring a run in each of the first two innings. The first came on a solo home run by junior second Colin Walsh to give Stanford the early 1-0 lead. After the Sun Devils tied the game in the top of the second on a pair of doubles, the Cardinal returned the favor. A pair of juniors, shortstop Jake Schlander and right fielder Dave Giuliani, began the bottom of the second with back-to-back doubles to give Stanford another one-run lead at 2-1.
Although five of the first eight Cardinal batters reached base on four hits and a hit-by-pitch, Stanford could not muster much offense the rest of the way. Sun Devil starter Seth Blair rebounded from early struggles to shut down the Cardinal offense. Stanford managed only four more hits over the next five innings against Blair, and ASU’s relievers had similar success.
The Cardinal had no extra-base hits after the consecutive doubles in the second, and Stanford finished with nine hits and just the two early runs.
The Arizona State bullpen picked up where Blair left off, as the combination of Mitchell Lambson and Jordan Swagerty held the Stanford offense down in the final three innings, allowing only one base-runner.
Meanwhile, Arizona State could not break through for any big innings on offense, but the Sun Devil batters chipped away enough to get the win.
Arizona State scored a single run in the second, third and fourth innings to take a 3-2 lead, and that lead proved to be enough. The Sun Devils tacked on an unearned ninth-inning run on an RBI single by center fielder Johnny Ruettiger, who was one of five ASU batters with two hits.
Stanford’s offense was spread around, as eight of its nine regulars had a hit. Freshman outfielder and leadoff hitter Tyler Gaffney was the only Cardinal batter with two hits, while Walsh added two walks to his home run.
For Arizona State, four different batters knocked in a run, and four different batters scored a run.
Junior catcher Zach Jones started the game behind the plate, but he was hit on the hand in a bunt attempt in his first at-bat and was forced to leave the game. His availability for the rest of the series is unknown, and he is listed as day-to-day.
Stanford has two more chances to improve its positioning in both the Pac-10 standings and for the NCAA postseason. Tonight, the Cardinal will take on the Sun Devils at 5:30 p.m. The final regular-season game for both teams will be tomorrow at 1 p.m. Both games will take place at Sunken Diamond.