Recap: Stanford Baseball drops Friday night game to Miami
On Friday, Stanford baseball fell to Miami at home by a final score of 6-3. Miami lefty Rob Evans (8-1) was the winning pitcher for the Hurricanes, totaling eight strikeouts and allowing two earned runs in 7.2 innings pitched while Stanford lefty Quinten Marsh (0-1) was awarded the loss for the Cardinal in a starting role, giving up two earned runs in 1.0 innings pitched. Miami 3rd baseman Daniel Cuvet went 3-5 for two RBIs. Miami improves to 28-10 overall and 9-7 in the ACC while Stanford falls to 16-18 overall and 6-10 in the ACC.
BOX SCORE: Miami at Stanford-Friday, April 17th
“You know, there’s probably a better ball game there than met the eye, right?” Stanford head coach David Esquer said after the game. “There’s a couple plays that we could have made and would have been a big one had we held onto the ball at home plate early in the 1st, right? And just young, could have given his leg a little bit, but just tried to hold his ground and jars the ball loose and we balk with the runner at third when we declare the windup and then we go into the stretch and I don’t think I’ve ever seen that happen before.
“And then, you know, routine grounder in the 8th. Right before their guy Cuvet, who’s a really good player, you know, and came up big with two big doubles and to the man part of the park, which is the opposite field gap. And we gave him a chance to put the game away, right? It gave him a chance to put the game away with that big double in the 9th.
“So, I thought they played very experienced and kind of old. I thought they played with a slow heartbeat and we played young. You know, you saw a couple, a couple signs of just being young…but I thought our pitching staff gave us a chance after the 1st inning. I thought they gave us a really good chance to be in the game.
“I thought their pitcher was excellent. I thought he was excellent. I thought he, you know, even with a little bit of traffic, he kinda had a slow heartbeat himself and made some pitches and just never seemed rushed and never seemed pressed. He just kind of was in command of the situation. Even when there’s bases loaded and two outs. I know Tatum hit a line drive to right field that was hit hard, but caught, and you know, I kept on looking up, the score was 4-1 and it was really a 2-1 game that we probably should have been playing at that point, which changes that dynamic and then we make a mistake in the 8th.
“It gives them a shot to kind of expand, on the 9th, to expand the lead and make it a little bigger, you know, [we] score a run in the 9th. A little bit of a, you know, kind of a garbage run. They make a bad play on a ball but still gets us one base runner away from bringing the tying run to the plate, too. So, disappointed for sure.”
As is indicated above, Miami scored their two runs off Marsh in the top of the 1st inning. Jake Ogden singled to right field after which Daniel Cuvet hit a ground-rule double to right center, advancing Ogden to third base. Alex Sousa then grounded out to second base to bring home Ogden and advance Cuvet to third base. Derek Williams then hit a sacrifice fly to left field to bring home Cuvet. A fly out would then end the top of the inning, making it a 2-0 lead for the Hurricanes.
Stanford would get on the board in the bottom of the 3rd inning as Rintaro Sasaki hit a single to left center to bring home Tatum Marsh, who was on second base after reaching on a fielder’s choice and advancing to second base following a ground out. A ground out would end the 3rd inning making it a 2-1 game.
The Hurricanes would score two more runs in the top of the 4th inning with Parker Warner on the mound for the Cardinal. Williams doubled to right center after which Brylan West single to center field to bring home Williams. West would advance to second and then third base thanks to back-to-back ground outs. He would then come home thanks to a balk. A strike out then ended the top of the inning. 4-1 lead for Miami.
A solo home run to deep left field by Eric Jeon with two outs gave the Cardinal a spark of life in the bottom of the 6th inning. That was the only run the Cardinal scored in the inning, making it 4-2 at the end of the 6th.
It would remain a 4-2 game going into the 9th inning. Unfortunately for Stanford, Miami added two more runs in the top of the 9th inning as Kassius Thomas gave up a two-RBI double to Cuvet. In the bottom of the 9th, Stanford a run as Nolan Stoll reached on a fielding error to bring home Tatum Marsh from second base. That gave the Cardinal their third run of the game before Brock Sell grounded out to third base to end the game. 6-3 Miami pulled out the win.
To touch quickly on Miami, this is a nice win for them. Especially to win the way they did. They came out on the road and held Stanford’s offense to three runs. They should feel good about the way this one went. They got the hits they needed and got a great pitching performance from Rob Evans. Just an all-around good night for them.
As for Stanford, this is a disappointing result. Their pitching gave them a chance and they weren’t able to deliver the runs necessary to get the job done. That’s very frustrating given the challenges the pitching staff has had all season. When the pitching does good enough, the offense cannot go to sleep.
“Yeah, you know, we’re still figuring out what’s the best rotation to use to make that happen,” Esquer said of the pitching. “I think we’ve been giving up a little too much in the, even though we’ve been trying to go opener and kind of shorten the game a little bit, but we’ve been giving up runs in those early innings, you know, and usually that’s pretty difficult to do, as the guy comes in, he just, you give him the ball and say, just get three outs and kind of keep us into it, but you know, in a couple of the last games, they’ve kind of given up runs and put us behind. So, maybe we’re gonna probably shuffle that who will do those type of starts, maybe by next Friday, we’ll probably try a different rotation.”
One thing to look for the rest of the weekend is the availability of Sasaki. He did not finish the game after getting hit by a pitch. Hopefully for Stanford, he’ll be able to get back in the lineup on Saturday.
“Got, you know, actually swung at a pitch, they hit him,” Esquer said of Sasaki. “You know, so took a full swing at pitch that him in the knuckle here, so you know, and he may be fine. We’ll check him out, but the answer was if he’s not going to be able to hit nine hitters from now, let’s take him out for now. You know, let’s play defense for the next three innings without him having to worry about it.”
Up next for Stanford is Saturday’s game at 2:05 PM PT on ACCNX. The Cardinal will look to even up the series and force a rubber match for Sunday.
“Yeah, you know, we’re kind of a little disjointed, right?” Esquer said. “I mean, like, you know, there’s been times where the offense has carried us and we’ve been waiting on the pitching. And now the pitching has given us a chance the last couple ball games, so we just haven’t been able to generate enough runs, though having some runners on base and some traffic. Even on Tuesday, I think we left 12 runners on. I think they walked us nine times and we scored one run and just not getting that RBI hit and leaving runners on base or bases loaded and so, it’s getting the right guys hot and getting the right guys to relax in the at-bat to kind of, you know, hopefully get a little contagious RBI swings.”
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