Recap: Stanford Baseball upsets No. 8 Florida State on Friday night
On Friday, Stanford baseball upset No. 8 Florida State 4-3 at Sunken Diamond. Parker Warner (1-3) was the winning pitcher for the Cardinal in a mid-relief role, pitching 3.0 innings while giving up three earned runs. Wes Mendes (7-3) was the losing pitcher for the Seminoles, pitching 6.0 innings while giving up four earned runs. Stanford improves to 19-19 overall and 8-11 in the ACC while Florida State falls to 29-12 overall and 12-7 in the ACC.
BOX SCORE: Florida State at Stanford-Friday, April 24th
“Yeah, great win, right?” Stanford head coach David Esquer said after the game. “It was a great ball game. When Florida State comes to town, that’s a big, it’s a big game. And you know, it’s the story of two innings. They got three in one winning and we got four. I thought our pitchers put up a lot of zeroes, eight zeroes on the board. They just scored in one inning. I thought we played good defense and then a couple timely hits. Lavin with a big ground-rule double and then Jeon with a two strike hit down the line.
“We’re lucky we made that hold up because we gave up a golden opportunity. The bases loaded, nobody out. And didn’t get a run in. Those would have been nice to give us a little cushion and give Trevor a little bit more breathing room, but he’s been pitching so great for us and he was able to hold him down in the 9th. So it was great win. It was a great win, but like I told them, you know, we didn’t come out here to win one and we got to learn how to win series’ and win series’ at home. So the next two game will be important for us.”
Andrew Shaw did a nice job as the starting pitcher for the Cardinal, giving up zero runs in 2.0 innings pitched. Warner came in for relief in the top of the 3rd inning and gave up three runs:
Eli Putnam singled to shallow field after which Carter McCulley doubled to left field to advance Putnam to third base. With one out, Chase Williams doubled to right field to bring home Putnam and McCulley. Hunter Carns then singled to right field to bring home Williams. Warner then forced back-to-back ground outs to end the top of the inning. 3-0 the Seminoles led.
Stanford would also score all their runs in one inning in the bottom of the 5th:
With one out, Charlie Bates got walked after which Brady Reynolds singled to left field to advance Bates to second base. Jimmy Nati then got walked to load up the bases. After a mound visit to Mendes, Luke Lavin hit a ground-rule double to left center to bring home Bates and Reynolds. That made it 3-2.
“Honestly, just going up there, trying to get the next guy up, against good pitching like that, can’t try to do too much,” Lavin said of his ground-rule double. “So, just going up there, see something up, see something firm, and just try to put the barrel on it and that’s what ended up happening.”
With two outs, Eric Jeon singled to left field to bring home Nati and Lavin. Rintaro Sasaki then popped up to the right side to end the bottom of the inning. 4-3 Stanford led at the end of the 5th inning.
“He’s had some big at-bats,” Esquer said of Jeon. “And he’s hit some big home runs and you know, so like, yeah, he’s been a great, great addition and he’s been pretty consistent and you know, putting him and Cort at the top of the lineup because they’ve got the best on base percentages among the best on our team, so trying to get them on base for Tokheim and Sasaki and they did that and now Tokheim and Sasaki have got to get them in.”
“Yeah, I mean, Eric, he’s awesome,” Lavin said. “First and foremost, like really good kid. Really good teammate. That’s kind of one of the bigger things that stood out to me is coming into a new team and blossoming into that kind of role and like not taking, you know, kind of going his own way. He kind of opened up to us really soon and you know, he’s great. He hits the crap out of the ball, puts together really good ABs, and he’s really solid on defense.”
From there, Stanford would hang on to win 4-3 as nobody else scored the rest of the game. Cohen Gomez (two strikeouts) would pitch the 6th inning for the Cardinal, Mike Erspamer (one strikeout) would pitch the 7th inning, and Trevor Moore (two strikeouts) would pitch the 8th and 9th innings to secure the save.
“Yeah, you know, you approach it about the same way every time,” Moore said of coming in to close. “I’ve had a lot of experience as a closer. A little bit here at this school, but in summer ball. And the mentality doesn’t change. Go out there and collect outs and get your job done and you knew you got your boys behind you and everybody else played a phenomenal game today and some of the kids played a really key part in this game was Cohen Gomez there in the 6th or the 7th. He had, you know, a lot of guys on base and shut it down. So, he did a phenomenal job as well as Sperm [Erspamer] and Shaw, who started, who else threw today? Everybody did a good job today. It was a good team win.”
While Stanford would have liked to have had more of a run cushion at the end, a win is a win. Especially against a top 10 team. The pitching did its job and the offense did just enough to get a win. All-around a great night for the Cardinal. It’s the kind of win they’ve been waiting for.
“Well their pitching was excellent,” Esquer said. “I mean, that guy’s probably a major leaguer. You know, he’s a major league pitcher and we needed to have some big professional type at-bats and that’s what it took. You know, professional at-bat by Lavin and then Jeon with a professional at-bat. And that doesn’t mean hitting home run. That means getting a hit with runners in scoring position on a tough pitch against a great pitcher and they were able to do that. We need to do more of that, right? We need to do more of that. I think we talked a little bit about; we hit enough home runs. We hit enough home runs. We need more professional at-bats with runners in scoring position.”
“That was phenomenal,” Moore said of the energy after the win. “I mean, Friday night wins are just awesome. They’re a good start to the series, they’re a good start to the vibes, and keep the momentum going.”
Touching more on the pitching, Stanford has started to figure out a rhythm with this by committee approach. While it’s not conventional, if it’s delivering better results, that’s what matters. The pitchers understand why this approach is needed and have done a great job of buying in.
“Yeah, you know, it’s certainly unconventional, but in terms of how the relievers approach it, it’s no different,” Moore explained. “I mean, we’re called in sometime during the game when, you know, stuff hits the fan. And yeah, it might be more of an adjustment for the starters. Parker went four and that’s just kind of the name of the game right now.
“At a certain point after the first few weekends it kind of just blends together where you’re just kind playing midweeks. You’re playing the weekend, so I mean, it kind of caught. We did it for a few weekends and we all kind of settled into it. So, I couldn’t tell you a particular time where it started to become the norm, but that’s how we’ve settled…I mean, everybody voiced their discomfort that this is new, not necessarily discomfort, but it’s been working. So we’re gonna keep rolling with it. As far as I know.”
Up next for Stanford is game two on Saturday. That will begin at 2:05 PM PT on ACCNX.
“Well, we’re gonna attack them with, you know, our whole pitching staff like we do every game, right?” Esquer said looking ahead to Saturday. “And again, I’m proud of them because what do we use? Five pitchers and put up eight zeroes, right? They only scored in one inning. And so that’s kind of our ammo and the way we’re going to do it and so we’re just gonna keep doing it like that and hope for the best. But I think some of our guys are kind of settling in on those roles. Coming in short stints and pitching their inning and getting in and out of there.”
“Yeah, I mean, without a starter, we gotta have a quality start,” Moore said looking ahead to the weekend. “You know, starting the game with some runs isn’t ideal. It’s kind like starting an inning and you get somebody on first right away. But I think the name of the game is to get rolling at the beginning and then let the momentum take the rest of the way, give our hitters a chance to go home.”
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