On Monday, No. 20 Stanford baseball defeated San Jose State 5-1. Stanford righty Nick Dugan (2-0) was the winning pitcher for the Cardinal in a starting role while San Jose State righty Tyson Pereria (0-1) was the losing pitcher for the Spartans in a starting role. Stanford improved to 16-6 overall (5-4 in the ACC) while San Jose State fell to 15-9 (4-2 in the Mountain West).
BOX SCORE: San Jose State at Stanford-Monday, March 24th
“Yeah, you know, a good win, a good win,” Stanford head coach David Esquer said after the game. “Really hard, still. You know, obviously lost a little momentum after the Duke weekend. Just not able to prepare the way that we normally do and it’s fragile in baseball. You can lose momentum quickly and so we were a victim of that and not making excuses. Just this team needs to be highly prepared with physically and mentally and sometimes school takes you away from that.
“So we’re still working our way back, but it was a good win. Good win and sometimes these hard ones on a midweek it’s just about pulling the other team and finding a way to pull out a win. I thought San Jose played a good game. Kept it close, right? It was 2-1 going into the seventh inning so it was not easy by any stretch.”
After a tough weekend in which they got swept at home by Cal, Stanford needed to bounce back in this game and they did rather strongly as they never trailed in the game. Stanford scored their first run in the bottom of the 1st inning as Jimmy Nati hit a double to right center, bringing home Trevor Haskins, who had been walked. Stanford added their second run in the bottom of the 3rd inning as Brandon Larson got walked with the bases loaded, bringing home Haskins.
In the 4th inning, neither team scored, but Dugan finished his time on the mound, pitching exactly 4.0 innings. Dugan gave up four hits, but didn’t allow a single run and also struck out four batters in the process. He had a good day and did a nice job executing a new pitch that he has been working on.
“We’re just looking for opportunities to get guys some of their pitches and build them up a little bit like that,” Esquer said of the decision to start Dugan over Parker Warner. “We’re gonna look for other opportunities for Parker, you know. And maybe try to double up on a midweek game if we can. Just to add more innings that we can use guys. We got a lot of innings, you know, atypical year. We’ve got a lot of healthy arms that need to pitch and it’s just finding the innings for them.”
“I feel like I did pretty good,” Dugan said of his outing. “I’ve worked in a new pitch. I have a like a two-seam going now. So I feel like that was a shock for them because they probably didn’t see that on the report. [I’ve been working on it] a week and a half. Something like that. It kind of came easy. The first couple of days it didn’t really work, but after that it came pretty easy.
“He [pitching coach Thomas Eager] did everything. I mean, he showed me the grip, kind of showed me how he used to do it. So yeah.”
Ryan Speshyock would pitch the 5th and 6th innings for Stanford without giving up a run while Toran O’Harran came in to pitch the 7th inning, also giving up zero runs. Stanford would then add three runs in the bottom of the 7th as Charlie Saum hit a two-RBI single with the bases loaded to bring home Trevor Haskins and Tatum Marsh before Brady Reynolds flied out to center field to bring home Jimmy Nati. That made it a 5-0 lead for the Cardinal.
“A little bit yeah,” Esquer said of seeing the bats come alive. “Again, baseball is hard and just momentum is hard to get back when you lose it. And so, just one of those things. It’s not something I haven’t seen before, but it’s not easy to to all of a sudden flip a switch and say okay, let’s be good again.”
“Yeah, I mean, obviously this past weekend was a little tough for us,” Saum said. “But good to grab some momentum back. I came up with the bases loaded spot, was able to get a knock there and I think it’s huge for morale moving forward. Getting the win.”
In the top of the 8th inning, Ty Uber came in to pitch for Stanford, giving up the lone run that the Spartans would score. Uber gave up a triple to Zach Chamizo, who then was brought home by a ground out to second base by Jeriah Lewis.
In the top of the 9th inning, Ben Reimers came in to close it out for Stanford in a non-save situation and he did just that, getting three straight batters out via ground out, strike out, ground out. 5-1 was the final score as the Cardinal bounced back from a rough weekend against Cal.
For Stanford, this was obviously a huge win. They did not want to drop this one and to their credit they found a way to pull it out. They had a pre-planned pitching rotation that allowed Dugan to get the win despite pitching 4.0 innings as the starter and they executed that to a tee. And then offensively they did what they had to do. All around, a nice team performance.
“Yeah, I mean just about everything,” Saum said of what was clicking for Dugan. “I mean, he threw I think every pitch for strikes at some point today, fastball slider, you know what I mean, with the sinker action to it, with the fastball, and then throwing the slider off that. It’s pretty tough for hitters to to be on time for and get a good swing on. I think that showed up today.”
Switching gears to the coming weekend, Stanford will take on Virginia on the road. Stanford dropped game one on Thursday, March 27th by a final score of 11-8. As a result, Stanford is now 16-7 overall and 5-5 in the ACC while Virginia is now 13-11 overall and 4-6 in the ACC. Game two will be on Friday at 3:00 PM PT on ACCNX and then game three will be on Saturday at 10:00 AM PT on ESPN2.
BOX SCORE: Stanford at Virginia-Thursday, March 27th
“Two teams with bloody noses, right?” Esquer said looking ahead to the matchup. “We got handled last weekend and they did, too. So it’s gonna be two teams really looking to find a win and really try to flip their league season. So, it’s gonna be a really difficult weekend for us and it’s on the road and so it’ll be a challenge.”
To quickly recap Thursday’s 11-8 loss to Virginia, Stanford came to play offensively. Temo Becerra, Ethan Hott, and Tatum Marsh each had two RBIs while Trevor Haskins had one RBI. The eighth run was scored courtesy of a fielding error as Charlie Saum came home. Brady Reynolds put the ball in play with a single, but due to the error by Virginia didn’t get credit for the RBI.
The real problem for Stanford was their pitching. Toran O’Harran (1-2) was the losing pitcher in a relief role, giving up three earned runs without recording a single out. However, it’s not like any of the pitchers played well. Matt Scott had another rough start on the mound after getting rocked against Cal last week. Scott only went 3.2 innings and gave up three earned runs. Stanford really needs Scott to settle in and get back to pitching like he was earlier in the season. They cannot expect to be a dangerous team if they can’t get better production from their Friday night starting pitching.
At this point, all that Stanford can do is move on from Thursay’s loss and see if they can bounce back on Friday. Christian Lim (2-3, 7.39 ERA) is expected to start for the Cardinal. Stanford really needs him to find his groove.
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