Recap: Stanford Dominates Cal in ACC Tournament
On Tuesday, (12) Stanford defeated (13) Cal 11-4 in the first round of the ACC tournament on Truist Field in Charlotte, North Carolina. Aidan Keenan (1-3) was the winning pitcher for the Cardinal in a relief role while Otto Espinoza (2-3) was the losing pitcher for the Golden Bears in a starting role. Jimmy Nati and Charlie Bates each hit one home run for the Cardinal while each having three RBIs.
BOX SCORE: Stanford vs. Cal-Tuesday, May 19th
“We showed over the weekend that we’re pretty evenly matched and that the margins are small,” Stanford head coach David Esquer said after the game. “You gotta get a big hit. We were able to add, you know, we win our games when we’re able to hit for a little bit of power, but we have to add some base hits along the way and we did that today. We didn’t do that over the weekend.
“And, Jimmy had a big day for us, which gave us some breathing room and we were able to add a bunch of hits, you know, like Rintaro got a base hit. Charlie Bates had probably the big blow of the game that extended the lead to 6-1 and then we pitch how we pitch. I mean, if you come watch Stanford play this year, you’re going to see six guys and we’re not going to let anybody stay in there too long and get in trouble. And you know, sometimes we try to win by pitch confusion and that’s how we’ve had to do it.
“But our pitchers have done a good job and some guys have really grown into that role where they get a chance to pitch for an inning or a small piece and then we get them out of there. I have to resist the urge to leave a guy, to get a guy in there maybe just to get one more out or one more inning and just kind of be satisfied with a good solid inning and then let’s move on to the next guy.
“But yeah and then obviously the big inning by Aidan Keennan. You know, they get second and third and nobody out and then he gets out of it without up a run. That was a big momentum shift. I think we may have even hit the home run right after that. So that was probably the biggest momentum shift of the game.”
The first two innings were scoreless as Cal starting pitcher Otto Espinoza and Stanford starting pitcher Toran O’Harran were both doing a good job of making things tough on opposing batters. In the top of the 3rd inning, Cal got on the board to take a 1-0 lead. With one out, Gannon Snyder doubled to left field after which Hideki Prather hit an RBI single to right filed to bring home Snyder. O’Harran was still on the mound for the Cardinal.
Stanford answered right away in the bottom of the 3rd as Nati hit a solo home run to deep center field off Espinoza, making it 1-1. Stanford wouldn’t add any more runs the rest of the inning, but they at least responded.
“Yeah, honestly, just playing to play again tomorrow and just fighting every day,” Nati said of his home run. “So, I think it just cleared the head space a little bit and everyone was able to just, you know, really just play to win and that frees you up when you’re swinging. And yeah, I was just trying to look for a fastball there and put my best swing on it and I was able to do that a few times today. So, really happy with that.
“And yeah, I’m just trying to keep that momentum going. I think it’s very contagious when a couple guys start finding the barrel and a few more guys start to it and then, you know, it’s an effect the whole way down. So for us to put up 11 runs, 10 runs, whatever it was, it was awesome.”
In the top of the 4th, Aidan Keenan came in to pitch for the Cardinal. He would give up a single before getting the next three batters. In the bottom of the 4th, Stanford added two runs. With one out, Cort MacDonald was walked and then stole second base after which Bates was walked. JJ Moran then singled to load up the bases. Eric Jeon then hit a sac fly to center field to bring home MacDonald. That made it 2-1. Nati then singled to center field to bring home Bates and advance Moran to third base. That made it 3-1. Luke Lavin then grounded out to the pitcher to end bottom of the 4th.
“Yeah, just experience-wise as well,” Esquer said of the importance of having Nati and Keenan healthy. “You know, Jimmy’s been through it. Came here last year in the tournament. He hit a home run in last year’s tournament as well and you know, we lean on those guys and sometimes injuries get in the way and they hamper them, but then you hope you get to these games where they’re just, they’re just a step a little bit bigger and sometimes that can kind of clear the mind of some guys that during the year just start thinking about other things or maybe have a little struggle and sometimes that’s what I’m hoping with some of our guys is hey, they get into this tournament and then the cream is going to rise to the top and you get some really big performances. A Keenan or a Jimmy and you need that, right? You need the MVP somehow of the tournament in your dugout if you’re going to win.”
In the top of the 5th inning, Keenan walked Ethan Kodama before Snyder doubled to left field, advancing Kodama to third base. With runners on second and third base and no outs, Keenan was in a tough spot. Rather than folding, Keenan went to work, throwing some filthy breaking balls. The result was three straight strikeouts to preserve a 3-1 lead.
In the bottom of the 5th inning, Stanford started to gain real separation with three more runs. With Rintaro Sasaki on second base and Cort MacDonald on first base, Charlie Bates went yard to right center, making it 6-1. Moran then struck out looking to end the inning.
Stanford added four more runs in the bottom of the 6th to go up 10-1 after Mike Erspamer pitched a shutout in the top of the inning, doing a good job of replacing Keenan. Nati hit an RBI double to bring home Jeon, Teddy Tokheim hit a two-RBI double to bring home Brock Sell and Rintaro Sasaki, and then MacDonald hit an RBI double to bring home Tokheim.
“Yeah, I mean, Cort’s one of my best friends. He’s my roommate,” Nati said of MacDonald. “He went through some struggles last year with the injury. So, just been speaking with him a lot and he’s been awesome having in my corner, just telling me, you know, keep fighting and keep turning up every day because it’s gonna come eventually. Yeah, like I said, just to, peaking at the right time and just want to keep playing for as long as I can. I love this place. I love Stanford, so I just want to play as many games as I can, yeah.”
From there, Stanford would cruise to an 11-4 win. Both teams traded runs in the 7th inning. Prather hit a solo home run for Cal in the top of the inning while Moran scored from second base for Stanford as Lavin reached first base via an error. That made it 11-2. And then in the top of the 9th inning, Kodama hit a two-run home run off Austin Steeves to make it 11-4. Colt Peterson would come in to get the final two outs for the Cardinal, forcing a ground out and line out to end the game.
“It’s a testament to those guys,” Esquer said of his pitching staff. “You know, early on in the season, I brought the pitching staff together and said hey listen, this is how we’re gonna do it, we’re going to use everybody in small pieces. We got to try to develop some momentum, some confidence, and leaving somebody in there until he does bad is not going to build confidence, right? And so like, hey, we’re going to go short bursts.
“If you do well, you may come out, and hopefully can start to build a little bit of a resume with these guys just with short spurts of success and you know, we’ve done a good job and we’ve given ourselves opportunities to win and you know, when we’ve dropped some games, it’s not necessarily been because we’ve just been giving it up on the mound. It just happens because of baseball, not because we use six pitchers a game.
“We’ve actually given ourselves really good opportunities to win a lot of games that we just haven’t taken advantage of, but I think that’s prepared us almost for tournament baseball, right? We got guys who know how to, you know, Cohen Gomez is ready to pitch every day and so he may get an inning every day. So, hopefully that works to our advantage. We can stay in here a little bit and you’ll see the same names show up quite often.”
For Stanford, this win is important for two reasons:
The first reason is it keeps their season alive. That’s the most important reason. Their only path to the NCAA tournament is to win the ACC tournament. They need to find lighting in a bottle this week and the first step is winning their opening round game.
The second reason is they got some revenge against Cal after dropping the series on the road in Berkeley last weekend. To send your rival packing always feels good. In the words of Marv from Home Alone, Cal may have won the battle in Berkeley, but they lost the war. Stanford on paper is the better team and that came through in today’s win.
Up next for Stanford is a game against (5) Miami on Wednesday. That will begin at 10:00 AM PT on ACC Network. Miami took two out of three games when they met on The Farm, but for whatever its worth Stanford won the final game of the series, so they at least can take a bit of confidence knowing they won their most recent outing against the Hurricanes.
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