Two home runs from junior Quinn Brodey highlighted a late-inning offensive explosion on Tuesday, as Stanford baseball (24-12, 8-7) trounced Santa Clara (8-31, 4-11) by a score of 8-2. The victory brought the Cardinal’s win streak to five games and continued Stanford’s high-scoring week, where it has eight or more runs in three straight games.
After going down 2-0 by the sixth inning, Brodey flipped the script, blasting a three-run home run over the right field fence to give Stanford the lead, which it held for the remainder of the game. The hit seemed to jolt the Cardinal offense into high gear, as the team put up a total of five runs in the remaining two innings to take the game.
Freshman Erik Miller started the game by retiring the first eight batters, but Santa Clara came back in the third with a solo home run to left field. The Broncos extended their early lead in the fifth inning off a wild pitch. However, those would be the only runs for Santa Clara, as senior Brett Hanewich came on in relief, maintaining the lead while striking out four batters over four innings of work.
Coming off Brodey’s blast in the sixth, the Cardinal offense continued strong, scoring three unearned runs in the seventh off an error, balk and a wild pitch. Junior Matt Winaker was in the middle of all the small ball, hitting a RBI single to center field at the beginning of the frame and showing heads-up baserunning to advance on a sacrifice fly from sophomore Nico Hoerner. Brodey capped off the inning with another home run, this time a solo shot to right field.
Stanford wasn’t done, coming back in the eighth frame with two runs. Sophomore Duke Kinamon singled and stole a base before coming around to score the Cardinal’s seventh run. The team would finish up scoring with a RBI single from freshman Maverick Handley.
With its win streak sitting at five, Stanford will hope to continue its winning ways against Arizona. The Cardinal will play the Wildcats in a three-game home series starting on Thursday at 6 p.m.
Contact Laura Anderson at lauraand ‘at’ stanford.edu.