Recap: Stanford Baseball falls to Cal on Friday as series evens up
On Friday, Stanford baseball fell to Cal on the road in Berkeley by a final score of 4-3. Trent Roach (2-1) was the winning pitcher for the Golden Bears in a starting role while Ethan Foley (3) was awarded the save. Kassius Thomas (1-3) was the losing pitcher for the Cardinal in a relief role. The series is now tied 1-1 after Stanford won on Thursday. Stanford is now 27-24 overall and 13-16 in the ACC while Cal is now 25-28 overall and 11-18 in the ACC.
BOX SCORE: Stanford at Cal-Friday, May 15th
“Boy, tough ball game,” Stanford head coach David Esquer said after the game. “It felt like, you know, we’ve been in a position where we almost given one away and tonight we did. And you know, it just, great job by us getting back in the game. Their starter was excellent. You know, he’s a good pitcher. They got good starting pitching and he made it tough on us. But we, hey, struck for a couple big swings and you know, Jimmy Nati and Brock Sell and you know, we mislocated on a two-strike fastball to Kenady who homered. You know what? Get beat by achievement, but yeah, we probably would have wanted to locate a little bit better. And then a play up the middle. We probably were going for two and we needed to make sure we got one.”
Aidan Keenan was the starting pitcher for the Cardinal, getting making his sixth appearance of the season and first since facing Pittsburgh back in March. Keenan was out due to injury, but now is back. Keenan got three straight batters out in the top of the 1st inning. That would be the only inning he would pitch, but it was still huge for the Cardinal to have him make his return.
Cal would score in the bottom of the 3rd to go up 1-0 as Daniel Murillo doubled to center field off Stanford lefty Andrew Shaw to bring home Hideki Prather who had tripled to center field. Cal would score once more in the bottom of the 5th as Prather went yard to deep left field off Stanford lefty Austin Steeves. That made it a 2-0 lead for the Bears.
In the top of the 7th inning, Stanford answered with three runs as JJ Moran got things going with a single up the middle. Jimmy Nati then hit a two-run blast to deep left field to make it 2-2. After Nolan Stoll struck out, Brock Sell hit a home run of his own to deep right field to make it a 3-2 lead for the Cardinal. Charlie Bates then flied out after which Teddy Tokheim grounded out to end the inning.
“Yeah, you know what? You like to have it,” Esquer said of Nati’s bat getting going. “And we may need it down the stretch the next couple ball games to have him just swinging the bat a little bit better and being productive would be big.”
Kassius Thomas would come in to pitch for Stanford in the bottom of the 7th, replacing Parker Warner who had faced a full count with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 6th before getting the strike out. Cal would even things up in the bottom of the 7th as Jett Kenady hit a solo home run to deep left field with two outs to make it a 3-3 game. Cal wouldn’t add any more runs the rest of the inning, keeping it a 3-3 game.
In the top of the 8th, Stanford failed to score, keeping it tied up 3-3. In the bottom of the 8th, Cal would go up 4-3 thanks to a Cardinal error. With Colt Peterson on the mound, Brady Errecart came up to the plate for the Bears with one out and Jackson Norum on first base as a pinch runner. Thomas had gotten the first out for the Cardinal, but then walked Olmstead, sparking the pitching change. Errecart would hit the ball up the middle to Eric Jeon at second base, which should have been a double play for the Cardinal. Instead, Jeon committed a fielding error, resulting in pinch runner Norum advancing to third base. Ethan Kodama then flied out to left field deep enough to bring home Norum. 4-3 was the lead for the Bears.
“I’ll be honest, I thought, you know, with the way we were offensing I thought, you know, them getting two was going to be enough,” Esquer admitted. “But we battled back, you know, it turns out at the end of the game, you know, giving up four and only probably three of them earned gave us a chance to wing. I thought they did exactly what they’ve been doing for us for lot of these series is giving us a chance to win.”
In the top of the 9th, Nolan Stoll singled up the middle for Stanford before Rashad Hayes came in to pinch run. Brock Sell then hit a sac bunt to advance Hayes to second base for the first out. Charlie Bates would get walked before Teddy Tokheim flied out to center field for the second out. Cort MacDonald then struck out swinging to end the game. 4-3 Cal pulled out the win and evened up the series 1-1.
“Yeah, you know what? He’s our best hitter,” Esquer said when asked if he wished Tokheim had been more patient during that last at-bat. “You know, he really is. I hate to make him less aggressive because he got a chance to run one out of the yard. And you know, he’s probably the one guy on the team I probably didn’t need to be patient at that point. Just hey, get a good ball to hit and put your best swing on it and just didn’t get enough of it.”
For Cal, this is a nice win. They even up the series against Stanford and get a chance to improve their ACC tournament seeding a bit more on Saturday. With Saturday being Senior Day and Graduation Day at Cal, they’ll be playing with a lot of emotion. It’ll be interesting to see how the emotions of the day affect the Bears.
As for Stanford, they need to shake this loss off and get ready for game three. They took the first game of the series on Thursday and still have a chance to win the series. They just have to make sure they play clean baseball. That error in the 8th inning really did them in.
“Yeah, you know, hey, I think they got maybe their best pitcher going tomorrow, right?” Esquer said. “And so, he’s going to make it tough on us. Kinda similar to today. But, we bring that stable of pitching that we bring against everybody and he seems to keep us close enough to give us an opportunity to win. So we feel we’re going to have an opportunity to win tomorrow, we just got to play a better game.”
On that note, game three will be on Saturday at 3:05 PM PT on ACCNX. That will be the regular season finale for both teams.
“Yeah, you know, hey we’d just like to win the series just because,” Esquer said. “You know one, it’s Cal. It probably has implications on seeding in the [ACC] tournament and we’re gonna do our best, but you know, it’s I think we’re learning as we go and some of these kids are coming out here getting in pressure situations. The Reimers of the world, the Petersons of the world, they’re doing fine and giving them opportunities and they’re, you know, they’re coming through. Steeves and guys like that are getting chances in big games and you know, we’re gonna need that if we can make a run in that tournament. We’re probably more tournament ready than most because we got everybody who pitches every day.”
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