On Friday, #2 Stanford baseball will welcome CSU Bakersfield to Sunken Diamond for a three-game weekend series. Game one will be on Friday at 2:05 PM PT, game two will be on Saturday at 2:05 PM PT, and game three will be on Sunday at 1:05 PM PT. Friday and Saturday’s game will air on Stanford Livestream-2 and Sunday’s game will air on Stanford Livestream-3. KZSU radio will carry all three games as well. Stanford comes in at 6-2 overall while CSU Bakersfield comes in at 7-2.
Last time out: On Wednesday, Stanford defeated Pacific 15-5 on the road.
RECAP: #2 Stanford BSB pummels Pacific
Probable pitchers: On Friday, the projected matchup is Stanford senior left-handed pitcher Quinn Mathews (1-1, 3.18 ERA, 16K) vs. CSU Bakersfield sophomore right-handed pitcher Ryan Verdugo (2-0, 0.00 ERA, 8K).
On Saturday, the projected matchup is Stanford junior left-handed pitcher Drew Dowd (0-0, 3.68 ERA, 6K) vs. CSU Bakersfield sophomore right-handed pitcher Jeter Schuerman (1-0, 0.77 ERA, 15K).
On Sunday, the projected matchup is TBD for both teams.
On CSU Bakersfield: The Roadrunners are off to a speedy start, winning seven of their first nine games. They took three out of four games against St. Thomas (St. Paul, MN) at home, they won a Tuesday night game at St. Mary’s 5-3, and they took three out of four games at home against Manhattan in their most recent series. While the competition hasn’t been super strong, it’s still impressive to win seven out of nine games.
The top contact hitter on this Roadrunners team is redshirt junior catcher Angel Saldivar, who is batting .346 for 1 home run, 5 RBIs, a .615 slugging percentage, and a .452 on base percentage. Saldivar is also the top power hitter as he and only one other player on the team has a home run so far this season. That other player would be junior catcher/outfielder James Bell, who is batting .182 for 1 home run, a team-high 8 RBIs, a .273 slugging percentage, and a .216 on base percentage.
The Roadrunners do have one other hitter in the regular rotation batting above .300: Graduate student infielder Riley Kasper, who is batting .303 for 4 RBIs, a .424 slugging percentage, and a .343 on base percentage. They definitely have some guys who can hit.
As a pitching staff, the Roadrunners are pitching extremely well: 1.44 ERA. Of the 27 runs they’ve allowed this year, only 12 have been earned, so their biggest problem has been fielding and not giving their pitchers enough support defensively. They have a .949 fielding percentage while their opponents have a .953 fielding percentage.
Keys to the series: For Stanford, the first thing they need to do is take advantage of any errors or miscues that CSU Bakersfield commits. That’s the biggest weakness the Roadrunners have and they need to take advantage of that. If Stanford can just put balls in play, that should also lead to more chances for the Roadrunners' fielding to make a mistake.
The second thing Stanford need to do is they need to make sure they get strong outings from both Mathews and Dowd on the mound. Those two guys are going to need to perform well given how good the Roadrunners’ pitching is. If Mathews and Dowd perform well, I like Stanford’s chances to win. If things get shaky for them, this could get interesting.
Finally, Stanford needs to get hits when they have guys in scoring position. This sounds like an obvious key to the game, but given how good of pitching the Roadrunners have, runs aren’t going to come easy. Stanford needs to make sure that when they do have runners in scoring position, they find ways to get guys across the finish line.
Prediction: CSU Bakersfield is a much better team than Rice, who Stanford had a little trouble sweeping. I think if Stanford can take two out of three games against this team, that would be a perfectly fine weekend for them and a sweep would of course be outstanding. I’m going to give the Roadrunners some respect and say they’ll get a game off the Cardinal this weekend. This has the potential to be an interesting series.
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