Stanford baseball takes a No. 9 ranking and a two-game win streak into Austin on Friday, facing No. 6 Texas in a three-game series that’s set to be one of the NCAA’s best this weekend.
The marquee matchup pits two highly acclaimed teams against one another, but difficult games are nothing new for the Cardinal (5-3), which started the season with seven straight games against ranked teams preceding this weekend’s series.
“We’ve had a real difficult schedule, but we’ve held our own,” said head coach Mark Marquess. “It shows us what weaknesses we have and what we need to improve…hopefully we can finish it out before they take finals.”
Stanford certainly has performed as well as one could expect, with its only series loss coming at the hands of third-ranked Vanderbilt. The Cardinal will try to avoid a similar fate in its second series against a top-10 team this season.
The Longhorns sport a strong starting rotation that is sure to challenge the talented Cardinal staff, which will go without starting junior Brett Mooneyham for the rest of the season due to a hand injury. Mooneyham’s spot has been taken by sophomore Mark Appel, who pitched six good innings in a losing 2-1 effort last Friday at Vanderbilt.
Appel’s job won’t get any easier this week, as he is slated to face Taylor Jungmann–who has pitched two consecutive complete-game shutouts for the Longhorns–in the 1 p.m. opener.
Sunday’s probable starter for Texas, Hoby Milner, has been nearly as perfect, allowing just one earned run in 11 innings pitched. Jungmann and Milner have struck out 31 batters and given up just 16 hits in their five combined appearances.
“The approach doesn’t change much at this point,” said junior reliever A.J. Talt, who pitched 2.1 solid innings in relief en route to an 8-4 win against Santa Clara on Tuesday. “We’ve been facing good pitchers pretty much every week.”
Stanford will need all the runs it can get against the Longhorns–Talt and the rest of the pitching staff have powerful Texas hitters to hold at bay, including Erich Weiss, who has hit .538 and knocked in eight runs in as many games. The Cardinal relievers have gotten the job done so far–Stanford is 4-0 in games in which they held the lead after six innings.
The pitching staff will need to be supported this weekend from a young Stanford lineup that features seven underclassmen. Standout sophomore outfielder Jake Stewart, who has hit safely in seven of eight games this season and posted a .394 average, explains that the team will continue focusing on fundamentals as they prepare for the Longhorns.
“We’ve struck out a little more than we’ve wanted to the last couple of weekends, so we’re just going to keep on that,” Stewart said. “We’ll keep working on staying relaxed and hitting line drives up the middle, and our pitchers are going to keep working on throwing strikes.”
Sophomore shortstop Kenny Diekroeger has been just as impressive as Stewart. The Cardinal’s top hitter last season, Diekroeger leads the team with six RBI and a .441 average. The duo has helped make the top of Stanford’s lineup a formidable one.
“[Diekroeger’s] just a good hitter. He stays inside the ball, you can’t get him out with one pitch, and he hits a breaking ball like a fastball,” Marquess said. “Stewart’s been swinging the bat very well lately too. He also gives us a really good speed tool, and he plays real good defense in center field.”
The pair’s contributions will be crucial for Stanford, which has out-hit its opponents in six games this season, five of them wins.
“It’s going to be awesome to go down there and play in front of 6,000 or 7,000 people,” Stewart said. “That Saturday game’s already sold out. It’s going to be an exciting environment to play in.”
The tough series will be followed by a Finals Week break for Stanford, which won’t see action again until March 18 against Michigan.