Recap: Stanford Baseball gets Sunday win over Miami
On Sunday, Stanford baseball defeated Miami at home by a final score of 14-6. Colt Peterson (3-1) was the winning pitcher for the Cardinal in a relief role while Sebastian Santos-Olson (0-1) was the losing pitcher for the Hurricanes in a relief role. Brock Sell (3-4) and Teddy Tokheim (2-5) each had three RBIs for the Cardinal, Sell hitting a home run. Rintaro Sasaki also hit a home run for the Cardinal, finishing with two RBIs, going 2-4 on the day. Stanford improves to 17-19 overall and 7-11 in the ACC while Miami falls to 29-11 overall and 10-8 in the ACC.
BOX SCORE: Miami at Stanford-Sunday, April 19th
“Well, you know, obviously the best we played the last three days,” Stanford head coach David Esquer said after the game. “And I’ll be honest, that’s the best we’ve played the last three days, too. We beat them at their best game. We just, the last two games, we just didn’t take advantage of having those opportunities. But today we did and again, we win like we win, we keep handing the baton off to another pitcher. Hopefully they find some zeros, there. And by the end, we did. So, it was a good team effort. I thought we offenced well, and you know, those guys at the bottom of the order Sell and Lavin both came through with three hit days, which was big and then obviously, big swing by Rintaro to get us some runs and Teddy Tokheim, you know, three RBIs, which was big for us, too.”
Miami was the first team to strike in this game, going up 2-0 in the top of the 1st inning as Alex Sosa hit an RBI sacrifice fly to bring home Jake Ogden before Max Galvin hit an RBI single to right center to bring home Derek Williams. Stanford would respond in the bottom of the 2nd with two runs: Sell reached on a fielder’s choice as JJ Moran scored from third base while Brock Ketelsen was out at second base before Luke Lavin hit an RBI double to right center to bring home Sell, who had stolen second base. Cort MacDonald grounded out to end the bottom of the inning. It was tied 2-2.
Miami added two more runs in the top of the 3rd inning as Williams hit a sac fly to deep right field to bring home Daniel Cuvet before Brylan West doubled down the left field line to bring home Sosa, who was on first base. 4-2 Miami led. In the bottom of the 3rd, Stanford added four runs as Tokheim, Moran, and Sell each hit RBI singles. Charlie Bates added an RBI of his own via ground out. 6-4 Stanford was ahead.
Miami would answer in the top of the 4th inning to tie it up as Cuvet hit a two-run home run to deep left field to bring home Michael Torres. That made it 6-6. In the bottom of the 4th, Stanford responded once more as Rintaro Sasaki hit a two-run home run to deep right field to bring home Eric Jeon, who was walked to get on first base. Stanford didn’t add any more runs the rest of the inning, keeping it at an 8-6 lead.
From there, Stanford would go on to win 14-6 as their pitching staff was able to lock down the Hurricane lineup. Sell hit a solo home run to deep right field in the bottom of the 5th inning to make it 9-6; Lavin hit an RBI single in the bottom of the 7th to make it 10-6 after which Tokheim hit a two-RBI single in the bottom of the 7th to make it 12-6.
“You know, he threw that slider, the first pitch, and I took it and threw it again and I got to roll it over to the first base side and I saw it very well,” Sell said of his home run. “And I knew if I saw it again, I was going to take a good swing at it and it happened.”
“Yeah, the guys at the end did a nice job,” Esquer said of their pitching. “And you know, sometimes it wears on ya a little bit when you bring new guy after new guy, sometimes it disrupts any rhythm you could have as an offense and that’s how we’re doing it, so it’s one of those things that, you know, it’s just kind of our style, we have to play this year is multiple pitchers in the game and get them out there…We try to script it a little bit. We have a script that hey, listen, this is the way it looks like it’s gonna go over and get, you know, two from Dugan and then to Peterson and Erspamer and then you know, if we’re pitching to win, we usually go down that lane with Gomez and Moore and so a little bit, there is a script to it.”
In the bottom of the 8th inning, MacDonald doubled to left center to bring home Ketelsen and Sell. MacDonald tried to reach third base for the triple, but he was out. That made it 14-6. MacDonald jogged back to the dugout, getting high fives from his teammates despite his over aggression in going for the triple.
“Yeah, good question,” Esquer said of what explained the offensive surge. “You know, you’re always searching for that. Maybe it’s a little desperation where you, you know, you stop worrying about how you’re doing personally and it’s more about just winning. So, I think that’s part of it as well. You kinda clear your mind and just try to find a way to win…We needed a spark and he [Sell] gave us a spark. You know, both him and Ketelsen in there did a nice job and that’s something we needed. You know, like I said, they’ll probably get more opportunities, but there’s a couple other guys, you know, Phil Cheong continues to play well when he gets a chance and he’s gonna have run here before it’s all said and done as well.”
“Yeah, I honestly, it was everyone in the dugout behind me,” Sell said of his impressive performance. “I didn’t have to do anything outside of myself to play today and it was just doing everything for the dugout.”
In the 9th inning, Miami did not add any runs, making it a 14-6 final score. Stanford’s offense really came alive with 16 hits and then the pitching was good enough given the run support. On top of that, Stanford played the cleaner game with zero errors while Miami had four.
“A little bit, we made some of those mistakes the last couple of days,” Esquer said of the errors. “You know, like whether it was a balk or a play at short stop, it extended an inning or an error at first base on a pickoff throw that led to a run. You know, those mistakes have been going their way and we’ve been making those to help them in the win, so it’s good to see it the opposite way.”
While Stanford wishes they would have won the series and feel like they blew an opportunity to do so, at least picking up one win and avoiding the sweep is far better than getting swept. They at least end the week on a high note and go into their next game with a good deal of offensive momentum.
“Huge win, right?” Esquer said. “It’s just a huge win and again, at home, we’ve got to play better at home, we’ve gotta start winning series’ at home. But that was a big win for us.”
“No, this is great,” Sell said of the victory. “We had a team meeting and we had to salvage the series today and get a win and that’s a really good team over there and we show that we can play our best baseball and beat really good teams by a lot. So, I think it’s really good for us moving forward.”
On that note, Stanford’s next game will be on Monday, April 20th at Santa Clara. That will begin at 6:05 PM PT on ESPN+. Santa Clara defeated Stanford on The Farm 2-1 last week, so Stanford will be looking to even the score.
UPDATE: Due to weather, Stanford’s game at Santa Clara has been rescheduled to Wednesday, April 23rd at 6:05 PM PT on ESPN+.
“Those are big,” Esquer said looking ahead to facing the Broncos. “The Tuesday wins are gonna loom big in the story of this season. So we’ve got to be ready to play.”
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