This weekend, No. 8 Stanford baseball will welcome the Texas Longhorns to Sunken Diamond for a Super Regional in the NCAA tournament. The winner of the three-game series will advance to the College World Series. Game one will be on Saturday at 3:00 PM PT on ESPN2 and KZSU radio. Game two will be on Sunday at a time to be determined while game three if necessary will be played on Monday at a time that is also to be determined.

GoStanford.com: Stanford Super Regional Central

Last time out: On Monday, Stanford defeated Texas A&M 7-1 to advance to the Super Regional round.

RECAP: No. 8 Stanford BSB advances to Super Regional against Texas

Probable pitchers: Stanford will start junior right-handed pitcher Joey Dixon (6-0, 4.99 ERA) on Saturday and senior left-handed pitcher Quinn Mathews (9-4, 3.65 ERA) on Sunday. In my podcast this week I suggested this as a possibility and that is indeed what they are going to do. It makes sense since Mathews last pitched on Monday and could use the extra day of rest while Dixon hasn’t pitched since last Saturday, so he’ll have had a full week off. The key is that Mathews starts one of the first two days and you might as well give him as much rest as possible.

As for Texas, junior lefty Lucas Gordon (7-1, 2.45 ERA) will get the start on Saturday while redshirt sophomore righty Lebarron Johnson, Jr. (8-3, 2.62 ERA) will get the start on Sunday. Neither team has announced who they would start on Monday if it comes to that.

On Texas: The Longhorns went 15-9 in the Big XII and really took care of business in the Coral Gables Regional, defeating Louisiana 4-2 before defeating No. 9 Miami (FL) twice by final scores of 4-1 and 10-6 without losing a game. Texas was excellent in their regional and are coming to the Stanford Super Regional with a lot of momentum.

The top contact hitter for the Longhorns is junior infielder/outfielder Dylan Campbell, who is batting .345 for 13 home runs and 48 RBIs to go along with a .616 slugging percentage and a .442 on base percentage. The top power hitter is redshirt senior outfielder Eric Kennedy, who is batting .293 for 16 home runs and 45 RBIs to go along with a .573 slugging percentage and a .368 on base percentage.

As a team, the Longhorns are batting .295 for 89 home runs and 412 RBIs to go along with a .500 slugging percentage and a .389 on base percentage. Their opponents are batting .240 for 37 home runs and 254 RBIs to go along with a .357 slugging percentage and a .342 on base percentage. Pitching-wise, the Longhorns have a 4.07 ERA while their opponents have a 6.87 ERA.

Keys to the series: For Stanford, the first thing they need to do is they need both Joey Dixon and Quinn Mathews to deliver the goods. If they get sound starting pitching, the offense should be able to come through and get enough runs to win. Mathews should be able to go deeper than Dixon as he goes deeper on average, so it’s going to be especially interesting and key to see how long Dixon lasts. The longer he can go, the better for the sake of the bullpen.

The second thing Stanford needs to do is bring the power. When they are hitting home runs and going yard, they are nearly impossible to beat. If guys like Alberto Rios, Drew Bowser, Braden Montgomery, Tommy Troy, and others are going yard, Stanford should win this series with little trouble.

Finally, Stanford needs to play sound defense. Stanford has a .972 fielding percentage on the year while Texas has a .979 fielding percentage. Defense could make the difference in this series and Stanford knows that. That’s why Temo Becerra came in at short stop for Owen Cobb in the regional. If Stanford plays a clean game in the field and avoids making errors, I like their chances. If they commit some errors, that could even the playing field and make this interesting.

Prediction: Stanford has a history of making things interesting and not doing things the easy way. They did so last week by dropping a game and I think they’ll do the same this time around as well. I got Stanford winning the Super Regional, but I think it will be decided on Monday.

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