This weekend, both Stanford baseball and softball will look to defend their home fields as they each have a 3-game series. Stanford baseball will be welcoming Washington State to Sunken Diamond while Stanford softball will be welcoming Arizona State to Boyd & Jill Smith Family Stadium.
Stanford baseball is coming in at 11-15 overall and 4-5 in the Pac-12 while Stanford softball is coming in at 28-6 overall and 8-1 in the Pac-12. Stanford softball is currently ranked #2 in the nation by D1Softball.com.
Stanford baseball will play on Friday at 6:05 PM PT, Saturday at 2:05 PM PT, and Sunday at 1:05 PM PT. All three games will air on Stanford Live Stream and KZSU radio.
Stanford softball will play on Friday at 7:00 PM PT, Saturday at 5:00 PM PT, and Sunday at 1:00 PM PT. All three games will air on Pac-12 Networks.
Last time out: Stanford baseball is coming off a three-game series at Utah in which they dropped the first two games of the series before having a crazy 13-6 victory in 11 innings to at least pick up a game on Sunday.
They then stayed on the road to play Texas Tech on Monday and Tuesday. They dropped both of those games and did so in high scoring fashion. The Monday loss to Texas Tech was by a final score of 10-9 in 11 innings and the Tuesday loss to Texas Tech was by a final score of 15-12.
The silver lining here for the baseball team is their bats have been coming alive as of late, which has been a bigger problem for them. The unfortunate thing though of course is that their pitching also struggled at the same time. This is something that head coach David Esquer has talked a lot about. Them not hitting when their pitching is good and vice versa. They gotta figure out how to put it all together in one game.
As for the softball team, they took two out of three games at #21 Arizona last weekend before following that up with a 3-1 victory over Santa Clara on Tuesday. They’re on quite a roll right now and will look to keep it going.
Probable pitchers: Starting with baseball, the Friday starting pitching matchup is Stanford sophomore righty Matt Scott (2-5, 4.45 ERA, 56K) vs. Washington State senior righty Grant Taylor (4-1, 3.27 ERA, 47K).
The Saturday matchup is Stanford freshman lefty Christian Lim (2-2, 3.28 ERA, 46K) vs. Washington State senior righty Connor Wilford (3-2, 4.46 ERA, 28K).
The Sunday matchup is sophomore righty Nick Dugan (3-2, 5.62 ERA, 31K) vs. Washington State senior lefty Spencer Jones (2-3, 7.09 ERA, 24K).
Moving on to softball, they don’t list probable pitchers, but for Stanford, sophomore NiJaree Canady (13-2, 0.52 ERA, 172K) and senior Regan Krause (11-2, 2.75 ERA, 59K) project to start at least one game each. If some other pitcher were to also start, freshman Alyssa Houston (3-0, 1.43 ERA, 20K) would be the most likely.
On Wazzu & ASU: Washington State baseball is 16-11 overall and 6-6 in the Pac-12. They most recently lost two out of three at Washington. So, they’re kind of an up and down team.
The top contact hitter for the Cougars is junior infielder Cole Cramer, who is batting .373 for one home run and 18 RBIs to go along with a .510 slugging percentage and a .443 on base percentage. Two guys are leading the way in home runs with six each: redshirt senior infielder Joey Kramer and junior outfielder Casen Taggart. Kramer is batting .321 while Taggart is batting .320, so they’re pretty even offensively. Taggart does have more RBIs with 27 with Kramer’s 19, but Kramer has the better on base percentage of .383 to Taggart’s .379.
As for Arizona State softball, they are 18-15 overall and 2-7 in the Pac-12. Sophomore outfielder Tanya Windle is the top contact hitter on the team, batting .400 for zero home runs and 18 RBIs. She also has a .511 slugging percentage and a .439 on base percentage. The top power hitter is graduate student infielder Alesia Denby, who is batting .281 for seven home runs and 22 RBIs. Denby has a .629 slugging percentage and a .393 on base percentage.
Keys to the weekend: For Stanford baseball, it’s really simple. They gotta just put it all together. They can’t have games where the hitting is great and the pitching is bad and they can’t have games where the pitching is great, but the hitting is poor. They need both to be on point. I will add this, Matt Scott has been shaky so far this year. It would be great if he had a strong outing tonight. They need him to settle into that Friday night role if they want to have success down the stretch. That really does help set the tone for your weekend when your Friday night guy delivers.
As for Stanford softball, they just need to keep doing their thing. If Canady and Krause remain on fire, they’ll be fine. Their pitching is fantastic and then their bats are stronger than they were last year. The only team that can beat them this weekend is themselves.
Prediction: I’m going to say Stanford baseball takes two out of three against Washington State. Their bats are starting to get going a bit and I think the pitching will be good enough. I think it’ll be close, though. I’m talking two out of three in three close games.
As for Stanford softball, I’m calling a sweep. They’re on a roll right now having only lost one league game so far this year. Smart money is on them to get the sweep.
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