This weekend, Stanford baseball will welcome Xavier to Sunken Diamond. Stanford comes in at 8-0 overall while Xavier comes in at 5-3. Game one will be on Friday at 2:05 PM PT. Game two will be on Saturday at 1:05 PM PT. Game three will be on Saturday at 4:05 PM PT or 30 minutes after the conclusion of game two. Game four will be on Sunday at 1:05 PM PT. All four games will air on ACCNX.
Last time out: Stanford swept Washington 4-0 last week. In their most recent outing, they won 7-3 as Trevor Haskins hit his fourth home run of the series, picking up ACC Player of the Week honors.
RECAP: Stanford BSB sweeps Washignton
Probable Pitchers: I would expect Stanford to roll with righty Matt Scott (2-0, 0.79 ERA) in game one, lefty Christian Lim (1-0, 5.79 ERA) in game two, righty Joey Volchko (0-0, 14.54 ERA) in game three, and righty Parker Warner (0-0, 9.64 ERA) in game four.
On Xavier: The Musketeers got rocked by Oregon State twice in Surprise, Arizona and also lost to Liberty once, taking two out of three in that series. On Wednesday, they won a road game at Indiana 8-4. So, they’re doing ok, but those losses to Oregon State were very decisive as they lost 8-3 and later 18-6.
The top starting pitcher for the Musketeers is graduate student righty Joseph Chavana (1-0, 2.79 ERA). Right behind him is sophomore righty Jake Hooker (0-0, 3.24 ERA). Both those guys are pitching well.
The top contact hitter for the Musketeers is sophomore infielder Jake Lambdin, who is batting .478 for four RBIs while having a .478 slugging percentage and a .636 on base percentage. There are five guys with two home runs each: Landon Mesik, Carter Hendrickson, Aedan Anderson, Clay Burdette, and Isaac Wachsmann. So, they got several weapons behind the plate.
As a team, the Musketeers are batting .260 for 10 home runs and 48 RBIs while having a .414 slugging percent and a .389 on base percentage. Their opponents are batting .288 for 10 home runs, 53 RBIs while having a .453 slugging percentage and a .405 on base percentage. As for pitching, the Musketeers have a 6.81 ERA while their opponents have a 5.88 ERA.
Keys to the series: For Stanford, the first thing they need to do is take advantage of Xavier’s weak bullpen. They got some decent starters, but their bullpen is shaky. If Stanford can rough up their bullpen, they should be just fine.
The second thing Stanford needs to do is they need their starting pitching to do better. Matt Scott has been great so far this season, but everyone else has been up and down. It would be huge if Stanford could get a strong performance from all their starters and not have to rely on their offense to save them.
Finally, Stanford simply needs to keep the long balls coming. They have hit nine home runs so far this season, four of which came from Trevor Haskins last week. If they can average one home run per game, they should be in good shape.
Prediction: Last week I picked Stanford to take three out of four and they swept Washington, which is really impressive since sweeps are hard to come by. I’ll double down again and say Stanford takes three out of four games. I don’t see a split, but Xavier is playing well enough that they could steal a game in this series.
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