Jonny Locher paced the Stanford offense with two hits and two RBIs and the Cardinal bullpen stifled a late San Jose State comeback as Stanford (19-23, 5-13 Pac-12) claimed its eighth victory in 13 tries with a 4-3 win over the Spartans (11-34, 4-17 Mountain West) on Tuesday night.
After giving up five runs in just 1.2 innings in his last start two weekends ago against Utah, freshman lefty Andrew Summerville returned to his solid form with six shutout innings against a meager Spartans lineup.
“Tommy Edman got a big hit for us, a double, and then Jonny Locher gave us a game-winner as far as offense for us,” said head coach Mark Marquess. “But the key for us was Summerville. He did a great job.”
Although Summerville had been the Sunday starter for the two weekends leading up to this week, he yielded to Chris Castellanos last weekend and was pushed into weekday duty for Tuesday’s game, evidence of a pitching staff that has been in flux all season.
“Both of them have come out of the bullpen and have started and have done good jobs,” Marquess said. “Castellanos didn’t do as great his last time but he had the no-hitter against Cal a week ago. Both are very capable, especially for Summerville — the more he goes out, the better he’ll be.”
“I think what was important was I established my fastball early,” Summerville said. “Against Utah, they were able to touch some of my fastballs. I had better command of my fastball today and that helped me out. That was the major difference today.”
Stanford’s offense, meanwhile, jumped out to an early 1-0 lead in the first on an RBI groundout off the bat of Zach Hoffpauir before squandering opportunities to add on as the game progressed. The Cardinal left a combined seven runners on base in the second through the sixth inning before finally breaking through with three insurance runs in the seventh.
Sophomore Tommy Edman drove in his team-leading 24th RBI with an RBI double down the right-field line before Locher mirrored his teammate and capped the inning with a rocket double down the left-field line that tacked on two more runs.
Tyler Thorne pitched two innings and allowed a run in the eighth before freshman Gabe Cramer allowed things to unravel in the ninth, when the Spartans rallied with three hits and two runs to pull within one and give Stanford a scare. Spartans shortstop Alec de Watteville finally grounded out with the tying run at first to end the ballgame.
Freshman Beau Branton saw his 11-game hitting streak snapped as he went hitless in three at-bats on Tuesday. His streak had marked the longest such run for the Cardinal this season.
On the injury front, Stanford was still without the services of Austin Barr, Matt Decker, Mikey Diekroeger and Matt Winaker. Marquess confirmed that Diekroeger will likely be sidelined for the rest of the season.
Stanford will return to action this weekend when it travels up to Eugene to face the Oregon Ducks to begin a stretch of six consecutive conference road games.
Contact Do-Hyoung Park at dhpark ‘at’ stanford.edu.