This weekend, Stanford baseball will head to Corvallis to take on the #4 Oregon State Beavers. Stanford comes in at 12-8 overall and 4-5 in the Pac-12 while Oregon State comes in at 19-5 overall and 6-3 in the Pac-12. Friday’s game will be at 6:00 PM PT on Pac-12 Oregon and KZSU radio. Saturday’s game will be at 3:30 PM PT on Pac-12 Networks and KZSU radio. Sunday’s game will be at 12:00 PM PT on Pac-12 Oregon and KZSU radio.
Last time out: On Sunday, Stanford completed a weekend home sweep of Washington State with a dominating 8-3 victory. As you may notice above, Stanford fell out of the USA TODAY Coaches Poll Top 25 even with the sweep.
RECAP: #24 Stanford completes home sweep of Washington State
On Oregon State: The Beavers are off to a really strong start. They’re the number two team in the Pac-12 standings right now behind #22 Oregon (7-2) and many consider them to be the heavy favorites to win the league. The one thing they don’t have on their resume right now is a Pac-12 series sweep. Washington State, Arizona State, and Cal each were able to take on game off of them, so that should give Stanford some hope to at least steal one game on the road.
Sophomore outfielder/infielder Justin Boyd is off to a strong start, hitting .405 for two home runs and 24 RBIs to go along with a .583 slugging percentage and a .543 on base percentage. The top power hitter on this Beavers team is junior outfielder/infielder Jacob Melton who is hitting .385 for nine home runs and 41 RBIs to go along with a .760 slugging percentage and a .405 on base percentage. The Beavers’ ace on the mound is sophomore left-handed pitcher Cooper Hjerpe who has a 6-0 record for a 2.41 ERA. Opposing batters are hitting .202 against him on the year.
As team, the Beavers are hitting .336 for 1.1 home runs and 9.9 runs per game. Their opponents are hitting .286 for .58 home runs and 4.8 runs per game. Their pitching staff has a collective 4.61 ERA while their opponents have a collective 9.04 ERA. They’ve been really good on both offense and defense, hence their strong start to the season.
Keys to the series: If Stanford is going to win one game in this series, they could actually declare that a success. Winning the series with two wins would be fantastic and a sweep would be out of this world. Also unlikely to happen. Odds say Stanford has good chance to pick up one win with two wins being a really tough hill to climb. If Stanford is going to climb such a hill, there are three things I think they need to do.
First, the starting pitching across the board needs to be sound. Alex Williams cannot be getting shelled on Friday night. He needs to bounce back from last week. And then Quinn Mathews and Drew Dowd need to be strong as well. It all starts with pitching. Especially against an elite team like Oregon State.
The second thing Stanford needs to do is play clean baseball defensively. Something that has really hurt them this year is costly errors. Fumbling balls in the field, errant throws past first base, etc. Those plays have to be kept to an absolute minimum. Ideally zero. Otherwise, this series could get ugly.
Finally, Stanford needs to strike first in at least one game. They’re not going to find success if they keep getting down early. They need to get on the board first at least once and build up a bit of a lead and get some confidence. Friday would be the perfect day for that to happen.
Prediction: Oregon State has won two out of three games in every Pac-12 series and I don’t see why that should change this weekend. I think Stanford will find a way to pick up one win this weekend. I don’t see them picking up a second win, but it wouldn’t completely shock me if they did. Stanford certainly has the talent to do it.
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