Recap: Stanford Baseball unable to rally against Miami on Saturday
On Saturday, Stanford baseball fell to Miami at home by a final score of 4-3. Jake Dorn (4-0) was the winning pitcher for the Hurricanes in a relief role while Ryan Bilka picked up his fourth save of the season. Cohen Gomez (3-1) was the losing pitcher for the Cardinal in a relief role. Miami improves to 29-10 overall and 10-7 in the ACC while Stanford falls to 16-19 overall and 6-11 in the ACC.
BOX SCORE: Miami at Stanford-Saturday, April 18th
“Yeah, you know, disappointing for sure,” Stanford head coach David Esquer said after the game. “You know, and a couple of big base running mistakes. Base running mistakes is what, you know, small things, right? And you know, we weren’t able to get that one. You got two thirds of the way out of the inning, two outs, nobody on before we gave it up. And so, you know, just little finishes, just little finishing touches and you know, as a coach, that hits you hard because the buck stops at coaching, right?
“You know, guys run the bases incorrectly, you gotta, you know, you take it personally because you think that you’ve coached them well enough and then when it doesn’t show up at the game, you know, a responsibility will lie in the coaching. So, that’s hard to take and that’s hard to, it’s a tough loss. This one hurts because it was well within our grasp. I thought we did a lot of good things to put us in position win the game. We just had one, couldn’t get a last out in an inning and then some, a big base running mistake with the bases loaded really cost us.”
Miami scored first in the top of the 2nd inning as Dylan Dubovik singled to right center to bring home Derek Williams. That would be the only run the Hurricanes would score in the inning.
Stanford would score three runs in the bottom of the 3rd inning to go up 3-1. Charlie Bates would double to left field after which Tatum Marsh singled to left field, advancing to second base thanks to an error (E7) while Bates came home. Rintaro Sasaki would homer to deep right field to bring home Marsh with two outs before Teddy Tokheim grounded out to short stop.
“Yeah, it was his birthday, you know, and he had some good at bats for us, you know, and hit a home run and hit what should have been a game tying sacrifice fly, right?” Esquer said of Sasaki. “And then a big walk there at the end there. So, you know, way much better for him in those big clutch situations, which, I think sometimes he’s had a little tough time relaxing, he looks more relaxed in those spots now.”
Miami would score three runs in the top of the 6th inning as Vance Sheahan hit an RBI double to right center to bring home Alonzo Alvarez, who scored from first base after hitting a single. Dubovik then homered to deep left field to bring home Sheahan. All three runs were scored with two outs. Fabio Peralta then struck out swinging to end the top of the inning. 4-3 lead for Hurricanes.
Stanford was not able to get one more run to force extra innings, but they definitely had their chances, most notably in the bottom of the 7th and bottom of the 9th. In the bottom of the 7th, they had bases loaded with one out as Marsh was on third base, Philip Cheong (pinch runner) was on second base and Eric Jeon was on first base after getting walked. Sasaki would line out to right field and rather than Marsh coming home or at least that only resulting in one out, due to poor base running, it ended up being a double play to end the inning.
With two outs in the bottom of the 9th, Nolan Stoll was walked after which Eric Jeon singled through the right side of the infield to advance Stoll to third base. Sasaki then got walked to load up the bases. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t Tokheim’s day as he grounded out to third base to end the game. 4-3 Miami held on to win.
“Yeah, you’re right, and you know, we couldn’t have asked anyone better than Teddy Tokheim, you know, and so hey, Teddy’s battling, you know, he’s battling,” Esquer said. “Is probably not as seeing the ball as big and as slow as he had been, but he still will give you a good at-bat and so, we can’t fault anything that he does. He’s been so good for us.”
What makes this loss frustrating for Stanford is the pitching once again gave them a chance to win. They just haven’t been able to get the pitching and hitting to sync up at the right time nearly enough. To lose in part due to poor base running and mental mistakes really hurts. The three errors of course didn’t help, either.
“Yeah, you know, our field is playing a little hot, you know?” Esquer said of the three errors. “I know the one that Moran missed was a pretty tough bounce, but you know, the throw at first base and I don’t know how much Rintaro getting hit in the hand with the impact on his glove, was he kind of babying it and taking one off on the end, but the ball that got by him, that run ended up scoring. So, I mean that was part of their run. So, in a game that’s decided by one run, there’s those little moments.”
At the same time, Miami is a strong team with an RPI of 35. Stanford has shown they can hang with good teams. They just have to find a way to put together complete games. If they could win on Sunday and avoid a sweep, that would be huge. On that note, Sunday’s game will be at 1:05 PM PT on ACCNX.
“Yeah, you know, what? You know, hey, it’s going to have to be perseverance, right?” Esquer said of the key to breaking through. “I mean, I could yell and scream at them, but you know, you don’t always have to go to the whip. You know, there’s a lot of times you just got to get them better. You know, the answer is getting better and finding a way to get that performance out of them, which we haven’t been able to do yet…It’s important. We gotta establish that we can win at home and that’s been, that’s been hard for us for some reason. I can’t, I don’t know why, but we haven’t defended Sunken Diamond as well as we need to.”
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