Preview: Stanford Baseball looks to bounce back at home against Miami following Santa Clara loss
This weekend, Stanford baseball will welcome Miami to Sunken Diamond for a three-game series. Game one will be on Friday, April 17th at 6:05 PM PT. Game two will be on Saturday, April 18th at 2:05 PM PT. Game three will be on Sunday, April 19th at 1:05 PM PT. All three games will air on ACCNX. Stanford comes in at 16-17 overall and 6-9 in the ACC. Miami comes in at 27-10 overall and 8-7 in the ACC.
Last time out: Stanford fell to Santa Clara on Wednesday at home by a final score of 2-1. Sebastian Schreiber (1-1) was the winning pitcher for Broncos in a relief role while RJ Meyn (4) was awarded the save. Brock Ketelsen (0-1) was the losing pitcher for the Cardinal in a relief role.
“Yeah, very disappointing loss, right?” Stanford head coach David Esquer said after the game. “Our pitching gave us a good chance to win, but hey, you know, it was about getting one hit and they got the hit. I don’t know, how many guys did we leave scoring or on base? [12 on]. Probably nine of them in scoring position, maybe or? [The bases loaded a couple times], You know, just one hit and they got one hit and won the game with one hit. So, that’s all it was. You know, tough ball game and sometimes in a midweek you, when both teams are staffing it, it becomes tough to score. They found a way to get one more than we did. So that’s disappointing.”
BOX SCORE: Santa Clara at Stanford-Wednesday, April 15th
Stanford scored first against the Broncos, going up 1-0 in the bottom of the 2nd inning after Nolan Stoll grounded out to first base to bring home JJ Moran. That would be the only run Stanford would score.
Santa Clara scored two runs in the top of the 7th as Luke Devine singled to left field to bring home Max Ross and Johnny Luetzow. Ross was hit by a pitch with one out after which Luetzow was hit by a pitch. Ketelsen was on the mound for the Cardinal, hence him getting awarded the loss. It was really the only blemish by the Cardinal pitching staff in what was otherwise a solid pitching night.
“You know, each guy just kind of did a nice job,” Esquer said of the pitching. “Really, they really did. And hey, you hate to nitpick with as good as they did, but you know, the runs that scored were a walk in and a hit by pitch, right? I mean, they got a hit, but we assisted them with the way the two runs who got on base, how they got on base and you know, hey you love to give your team margin for error, which is like, hey, maybe you can have a bad inning or walk a couple guys, and come out and win 3-2 and just say that’s kind of a nothing, but we didn’t have that luxury tonight. They got the big hit to win the game and we weren’t able to get it.”
In the end, Santa Clara would win 2-1 as Stanford was not able to even up the game and force extra innings. Given how well they pitched on the whole, it was a bummer for Stanford to not generate enough offense as their bats went colder than the leftovers in the back of the team fridge. They left 12 runners on base and only generated four hits. Amazingly, Santa Clara’s bats really weren’t any better with just two hits, but to their credit, one of those two hits ended up making all the difference.
On Miami: The Hurricanes have had an up and down season. They started off slow in ACC play, dropping their home series to Boston College and road series at Duke before taking two out of three to beat Clemson on the road and taking two out of three at home to beat Virginia Tech. Most recently, they defeated Wake Forest, taking two out of three at home.
The top contact and power hitter for the Hurricanes is fifth year outfielder Derek Williams, who is batting .398 for 14 home runs and 54 RBIs for a .812 slugging percentage and a .494 on base percentage. The number two contact hitter is graduate student infielder Brylan West, who is batting .339 for five home runs and 34 RBIs to go along with a .516 slugging percentage and a .436 on base percentage. The number two power hitter is junior infielder Daniel Cuvet, who is batting .297 for 11 home runs and 41 RBIs to go along with a .638 slugging percentage and a .434 on base percentage.
On the mound, the Hurricanes have a 4.26 ERA while their opponents have a 9.15 ERA. The top starting pitcher for the Hurricanes is senior lefty Rob Evans, who is 7-1 for a 2.96 ERA with 58 strikeouts in 48.2 innings pitched. The top relief pitcher is redshirt junior lefty Jake Dorn, who has a 2.11 ERA in 19 appearances and 21.1 innings pitched.
“Well, you know, I kind of sarcastically will say, our crosstown rival Miami is coming to town, right?” Esquer said with a smile. “I mean, like, it’s unusual to see some of these teams coming to Sunken Diamond, but that’s our league and our league is really good. Our league is really good. We’re facing a regional quality opponent every weekend and they’re gonna, and they are a regional quality team. They come in with some good starting pitching. We’re going to have to be, you know, we’re going to have to play better than we did tonight.”
Keys to the series: The first thing Stanford needs to do is they need to win the walk battle. As we saw against Santa Clara, walking a batter late followed by a hit by pitch ended up making the difference. If Stanford can force Miami to get on base via hit and limit walks, that would go a long way towards winning this series. Limiting those walks has been a major issue at times for the Cardinal. If they can clean that up, they should be in a good spot.
Secondly, Stanford needs to win the long ball battle. Stanford has guys who can go yard like Teddy Tokheim, Jimmy Nati, and Rintaro Sasaki. If Stanford is able to hit more homers than Miami, they should have an edge in this series. Especially if those homers come with runners on base.
Finally, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Stanford has to limit the errors. They had two errors against Santa Clara while Santa Clara had one. Stanford has to cut back on those errors. If they play the cleaner series this weekend, that would be huge as they look to win the series.
“We’ve gotta be resilient, right?” Esquer said of bouncing back against Miami. “We got to come back after a tough loss tonight and we just, again, we gotta find whatever intensity or you quality of play that we find on the road recently, we have to find it at home.”
Prediction: Defending their home field has been a challenge at times, but I still gotta roll with Stanford to win the series, taking two out of three. I don’t see a sweep, but I do think Stanford finds a way to win the series.
“We gotta be better at home,” Esquer said. “We’ve not defended home very well in the last, shoot, year and a half, right? Probably started with that Cal series a year ago. Probably since then, I think our record at home is very poor and we’ve got to figure out how to be better at home. It’s disappointing.”
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