Stanford head coach David Esquer looks ahead to facing Louisville
Stanford baseball fell to Clemson 12-5 on Sunday, dropping the series to the Tigers. Up next is a road series against Louisville which will begin on Friday at 3:00 PM PT on ACCNX. Below are the thoughts of Stanford head coach David Esquer after the loss to Clemson ahead of facing Louisville.
BOX SCORE: Clemson at Stanford-Sunday, April 5th
Q: How would you evaluate your team’s performance today?
Esquer: “Yeah, you know what, it started competitive and then they pulled away and you know, it’s just a little bit of a butt whipping there by the end. So you know, 18 hits and we only answered with eight and we just didn’t punch with them today. Had a couple opportunities, had a bases loaded with nobody out opportunity. I think we only got one out of it. We needed more. We needed more there.”
Q: Talk about defensively, three errors. That’s not what you want to see. You guys were better in that department the last couple of games. What do you guys need to do to clean up that side of things?
Esquer: “Yeah, you know what, that along with some free bases and walks. That’s not a good combination. I think we only walked them twice today, but the defense was, you know, we had a couple plays there we could have made.”
Q: Talk about the challenges of the way you tried to manage the pitching for this one.
Esquer: “Yeah, you know, right around that 6th inning I could see the game was in the balance that we had to try to hold it close there. And you know, you give up that five and that gave them enough breathing room to pitch it a little bit differently, but we just couldn’t hold them. Every time we scored they scored and that makes it harder.”
Q: You got a pretty resilient group. You took two out of three at Virginia Tech. What’s the key to keep that resilience going?
Esquer: “Yeah, it’s a little bit, it’s kinda like win or learn, right? You can’t really lose. You gotta learn from the games that don’t go your way. And so, this, we just got to, we got to show up every day and just keep improving. You know, just gotta close up some of those holes and you know, this game will really tell ya a lot just over the long haul, right? Just, like, one of these days a Sunday, you know, they just, they played a better game than we did today, which is unfortunate. You know, you’re at home, you’re playing at your home ball park and you like a little bit better effort.”
Q: Clemson came in with not a great league record, but they were ranked at the beginning of the season. Just talk about the challenges they pose.
Esquer: “Yeah, they’re a good club. You know, this league is a meat grinder, right? So I think everyone in this league will go through a 1-5 string at some point and you gotta be able to come out of that and not let that bury your season. And so, I think they were going through it a little bit. It’s obviously a big road win for them to beat Stanford on the road. So, we’ve gotta defend our home court a little bit better here than we have here recently.”
Q: Thoughts on facing Santa Clara when you guys get back from your road trip?
Esquer: “Yeah, that’s after the Louisville series. Yeah, you know, Santa Clara, local, those Tuesdays. It’s going to be interesting to see how we can handle the Tuesday with how we’re pitching on the weekends. You know, we’re losing a lot of bodies, so it could leave us a little thin on a midweek, but you know, Santa Clara is always tough and plays us tough, so it’ll be a good match.”
Q: And then just thoughts on Louisville, that’s the next one up. Yeah.
Esquer: “Louisville is gonna be tough on the road, right? But we’ve played well on the road. We’ve showed up on the road. They play with a lot of speed. They run. So we’re going to have to be ready for the running game.”
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