Preview: Stanford Baseball heads to Berkeley to battle Cal
This weekend, Stanford baseball will head to Berkeley for a three-game series against Cal to wrap up regular season play. The Cardinal come in at 26-23 overall and 12-15 in the ACC while the Golden Bears come in at 27-24 overall and 10-17 in the ACC. Game one is on Thursday, May 14th at 7:05 PM PT on ACCNX. Game two is on Friday, May 15th at 6:05 PM PT on ACCNX. Game three is on Saturday, May 16th at 3:05 PM PT on ACCNX.
Last time out: Stanford got a much-needed 7-6 victory over Saint Mary’s on Tuesday. Brock Sell’s three RBIs came up big for the Cardinal.
RECAP: Stanford Baseball gets Tuesday win over Saint Mary’s
On Cal: The Golden Bears have struggled overall in league play, but most recently, they took two out of three on the road at No. 23 Virginia, so they’re coming into this rivalry series with a bit of momentum. They avoided a sweep against Virginia Tech on Sunday, May 3rd with a 9-4 victory and followed that up with a 2-1 victory over Pacific on Tuesday, May 5th. That means the Bears have won four of their last five games. In a road game at Saint Mary’s on Tuesday, April 28th, the Bears won 6-5. Just to give you a bit of a sense of how they’ve done recently against a common opponent.
The top contact hitter for the Bears is freshman infielder Jett Kenady, who is batting .333 for 10 home runs, 33 RBIs, a .593 slugging percentage, and a .361 on base percentage. The top power hitter for the Bears is junior catcher Hideki Prather, who is batting .332 for 12 home runs, 43 RBIs, a .615 slugging percentage, and a .421 on base percentage. The third hitter with double-digit home runs is graduate student infielder Daniel Murillo, who has gone yard 10 times to go along with a .313 batting average, .534 slugging percentage, and a .353 on baser percentage while having 44 RBIs. That trio of Kenady, Prather, and Murillo are the ones who do most of the damage.
The top pitcher for the Bears is sophomore righty Gavin Eddy, who has a 6-3 record in 13 starts and 13 appearances while having a 2.97 ERA. As a team, the Bears have an ERA of 4.32 while their opponents have an ERA of 5.05.
Team Stats-California Golden Bears
Keys to the series: For Stanford, the first thing they need to do is see if they can rattle Eddy. If they can generate some offense against Eddy, that would go a long way towards winning this series. He’s the ace of this Bears pitching staff and will look to come out strong. If Eddy gets the better of the Cardinal batters, odds are good the Bears win that game and that’ll give them an edge in this series. If Stanford can get a win over Eddy, that would be huge. The last two series, he has pitched on Saturdays. So that would mean he’s likely to pitch Friday given the Thursday-Saturday configuration, but we’ll just have to see.
Secondly, Stanford’s bullpen needs to hold firm. They’ve had a couple close calls lately where the bullpen almost blew it, but they generated just enough runs to win. If Stanford can get the ball to Trevor Moore with a lead, they should be in good shape. That really has to be the goal.
Finally, Stanford needs to play clean baseball defensively. I sound like a broken record, but it’s really true. They have to play good, sound, fundamental clean baseball. If they can avoid errors and not make any silly mistakes, Stanford should be in a good spot to win the series. If not, the Bears could easily take it.
Prediction: I got Stanford taking two out of three games. I don’t see a sweep happening, but given they are on paper the better team, I gotta give the edge to the Cardinal. There should be a little extra motivation after getting swept last year, too.
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