Stanford baseball (22-19, 7-17 ACC) steadied itself Monday night with a 2-1 win over Sacramento State (26-18, 10-5 Big Sky), a quiet but badly needed victory after a bruising weekend in which Wake Forest (30-16, 12-12 ACC) took two of three at Sunken Diamond.
Stanford opened the Wake Forest series in dramatic fashion Friday. Junior Cort MacDonald went 3-for-4 and lined an opposite-field single in the 12th inning that scored Saborn Campbell for a 7-6 walk-off, the program’s third walk-off victory of the season. Stanford’s pitching was suspect, as it issued 14 walks and hit two batters for the Demon Deacons, but junior Sam Garewal entered the contest late and stabilized the game on the mound. Garewal recorded the final four outs, three came via strikeouts, and was credited the victory.
Saturday’s matinee looked equally promising. A four-run eighth turned a 7-5 deficit into a 9-7 lead, and head coach David Esquer handed the ball to sophomore closer Aidan Keenan with three outs to go. Instead of securing a series-clinching win, Wake Forest rifled five consecutive singles, plating five runs and stunning Stanford 12-9. The meltdown overshadowed multi-hit days from junior Ethan Hott, MacDonald and freshman Tatum Marsh.
With a series win at stake, the Demon Deacons finished the job Sunday as they shutout Stanford 10-0 in seven innings. Freshman Parker Warner opened with a scoreless first, but five relievers combined to issue nine walks and the game spiraled early. Walks continued to be the pitching staff’s bugaboo as they wrapped up the weekend with 31 free passes for Wake Forest’s batters. The shutout was only Stanford’s second of the season, but it’s second in the last six games.
Twenty-four hours later the Cardinal finally exhaled behind junior right-hander Nick Dugan. The Eureka native surrendered six hits over seven innings, striking out six without a walk to move to 5-0 on the season. Garewal once again entered the game late and slammed the door with a perfect two-inning save — his first at Stanford — and the offense mustered up all the support it would need in the first inning. Back-to-back doubles from senior Trevor Haskins and MacDonald, followed by Marsh’s infield single and an RBI grounder from junior Jimmy Nati, produced the Cardinal’s only runs. Stanford is now 15-2 against non-ACC opponents.
Monday’s victory pushed Stanford a few games above .500 overall, but the road to the NCAA College World Series remains narrow. A recent analysis of the Cardinal’s current placing in the standings has calculated that the Cardinal likely need at least 10 wins in their final 13 games — and most of those must come in league play — to match last season’s ACC threshold of 31-21 overall and 15-15 in conference play. They have lost two games since this projection, which suggests the Cardinal may only have one loss to play with the rest of the season. It’s a tall order, but a tourney birth might still be possible for a squad that started the season winning 15 of their first 18 games. Another dominant run will be necessary as the season reaches the home stretch.
The Cardinal now head to Boston College (22-23, 9-15 ACC) looking for their first conference road series win since early March. Stanford opens the four-game series Friday at Shea Field in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts.