This weekend, #12 Stanford baseball will head to San Diego to battle both Grand Canyon and San Diego State, playing four games in a span of three days. Stanford will face Grand Canyon on Friday at 1:00 PM PT and on Saturday at 1:00 PM PT before facing San Diego State on Saturday at 6:00 PM PT and Sunday at 1:00 PM PT. The games against Grand Canyon will be considered neutral site while the games against San Diego State will be classified as road games. Stanford comes in at 21-11 overall and 11-7 in the Pac-12; Grand Canyon comes in at 26-12 overall and 15-3 in the WAC; and San Diego State comes in at 10-28 overall and 4-14 in the Mountain West.
Note: Those records include the first meeting San Diego State and Grand Canyon had on Thursday (Grand Canyon won 7-2).
Last time out: Stanford defeated Cal Poly 10-8 on the road on Tuesday. Ryan Bruno picked up his first save of the season for Stanford.
RECAP: #12 Stanford hangs on to beat Cal Poly
On GCU and SDSU: Looking at both their overall records and also the result of their first meeting, it’s clear that Grand Canyon is the more talented and better team. Even though San Diego State will be a true road game, Grand Canyon will be the tougher opponent this weekend.
What makes Grand Canyon tough is they have a lot of firepower in their lineup. Sophomore infielder Jacob Wilson and junior outfielder Taylor Aguilar each have hit nine home runs this season while redshirt senior utility Juan Colato and sophomore utility Tyler Wilson have each hit five. The Lopes know how to heat up behind the plate and when given even a little bit of daylight, they can go wild. The Lopes also have a solid pitching staff that has a combined 3.86 ERA. Their combination of power hitting and pitching is what makes them so dangerous.
As for San Diego State, their home run leaders sophomore catcher Poncho Ruiz and junior 1st baseman Brian Leonhardt each have four, so they don’t have the same kind of firepower as Grand Canyon. Ruiz is hitting .301 on the year and is one of two Aztecs hitting at .300 or better. The other one hitting above .300 is sophomore catcher/utility Cole Carrigg, who is hitting .361 on the year to go along with two home runs and a team-high 25 RBIs. San Diego State’s pitching is also not as good as Grand Canyon’s as their pitching staff has a 4.88 ERA. So across the board, Grand Canyon is just better.
Keys to the weekend: For Stanford, the first key to having a successful weekend is to take care of business against San Diego State. Grand Canyon is going to be tough and Stanford should be feeling good if they can just get a split against the Lopes. As for San Diego State, it’s really imperative for Stanford to get a sweep against them and take both games. If they do that, that will take a lot of pressure off the weekend. Of course, they’ll be facing Grand Canyon first, but as they look at this weekend as a whole, sweeping San Diego State is a must.
Stanford also needs their bullpen to step up. The bullpen has been really shaky. Starters Alex Williams and Quinn Mathews can’t carry the pitching staff on their backs. They need help. One guy who has been big out of the bullpen is Ryan Bruno, who got the save against Cal Poly. He’s going to need to be big and then Ty Uber is another guy who is going to have to come up big, perhaps in a starting role for one of the games.
Lastly, the bats need to stay hot. Since the bullpen cannot be trusted, the best medicine to cure a bad bullpen in real time is to simply get hot with your bats and put up enough runs to withstand any issues your bullpen may have. Braden Montgomery, Carter Graham, and Brett Barrera are all batting above .300 on the season while both Graham and Barrera are actually batting north of .360. Brock Jones has also been starting to figure things out. If those guys keep their foot on the gas and others feed off of their success, Stanford is going to be tough to stop this weekend.
Prediction: I don’t see Stanford winning all four games this weekend. That’s asking too much. At the same time, asking for a split is asking for too little. I think Stanford will take three out of four games this weekend, splitting with Grand Canyon and then sweeping San Diego State. If they do that, they’ll be able to call this a successful weekend.
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