This weekend, Stanford baseball will take on the No. 4 Clemson Tigers on the road at Doug Kingsmore Stadium. Game one will be on Friday at 3:00 PM PT on ESPNU. Game two will be on Saturday at 3:00 PM PT on ACC Network. Game three will be on Sunday at 12:00 PM PT on ACC Network. Stanford comes in at 18-12 overall and 5-10 in the ACC while Clemson comes in at 31-5 overall and 9-3 in the ACC.
Probable pitchers: No probable pitchers have been listed for this matchup. For the Stanford side, odds are good that junior righty Matt Scott (4-2, 5.30 ERA), sophomore lefty Christian Lim (2-3, 7.11 ERA), and sophomore righty Joey Volchko (2-1, 7.49 ERA) will be the starters, but the question is what order will they go? I suppose there’s a chance Stanford mixes up their lineup even more and starts someone other than one of those three in one of the games. Junior righty Nick Dugan (3-0, 7.36 ERA) would be the most likely guy to enter the mix for that. He pitched well on Monday against UC Davis, but I would still expect Scott, Lim, and Volchko to be the starters. Just making the point that without probable starters posted, there is a chance Stanford goes in a different direction on at least one of the days.
Last time out: Stanford defeated UC Davis 4-0 on Monday. Nick Dugan got the win on the mound as the Cardinal collectively pitched their first shut out since their 7-0 victory at North Carolina last month.
RECAP: Stanford BSB bounces back against UC Davis
On Clemson: The Tigers are having a wonderful season as their record and ranking indicate. They’ve won eight of their last nine games, sweeping Cal and taking two out of three against Georgia Tech during that time all while taking care of business in their midweek games. All season long, they’ve been doing great in the ACC and showing why they are a serious threat to not only reach the College World Series, but take it all.
The top contact hitter for the Tigers is sophomore infielder Jarren Purify, who is batting .333 for three home runs, 23 RBIs, a .526 slugging percentage, and a .467 on base percentage. Their top power hitter is junior catcher Jacob Jarrell, who is batting .264 for seven home runs, 20 RBIs, a .491 slugging percentage, and a .409 on base percentage. Senior infielder Josh Paino and sophomore infielder Collin Priest both have hit six home runs, so they’re knocking on the door as well for leading the team in homers.
As a team, the Tigers are batting .278 for 273 runs, 40 home runs, 255 RBIs, a .442 slugging percentage, and a .422 on base percentage. Their opponents are batting .221 for 168 runs, 39 home runs, 155 RBIs, a .365 slugging percentage, and a .327 on base percentage. On the mound, they have a 4.37 ERA while their opponents have a 7.43 ERA.
Keys to the series: For Stanford, this all starts with starting pitching. If the starting pitching holds and doesn’t get rocked, they got the offense to make things interesting. If the starting pitching gets lit up like a firecracker on the Fourth of July, this will be an ugly weekend.
Secondly, Stanford’s bats need to find some power with runners on base. If they can knock some home runs with runners on base, that would be huge. If not, it’s going to be tough for them to make this much of a series.
Finally, Stanford just needs to play smart baseball. Don’t make base running mistakes, make good decisions on defense, take good at-bats, etc. If Stanford is going to lose this weekend, it should be because of Clemson. Not because of themselves. And a lot of times, they’ve been losing at least in part because they got in their own way.
Prediction: I would love to pick Stanford to win a game this weekend, but I have to pick a Clemson sweep. The Tigers are playing too good and Stanford has gotten swept in their last three ACC series. Smart money is on another sweep, but maybe Stanford will surprise me.
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