On Friday at 6:05 PM PT on Stanford Live Stream-2 and KZSU radio, Stanford baseball will take on the Arizona State Sun Devils. This will be the first game of a three game home series. Game 2 will be on Saturday at 2:05 PM PT, part of the festivities of Cardinalpalooza. Game 3 will be on Sunday at 1:05 PM PT. Both of those games will also air on Stanford Live Stream-2 and KZSU radio. Stanford comes into the series at 14-10 overall and 6-6 in the Pac-12 while Arizona State comes in at 14-16 overall and 5-4 in the Pac-12.
Last time out: On Tuesday, Stanford fell to Saint Mary’s at home by a final score of 8-1.
RECAP: Stanford suffers mid-week defeat to Saint Mary’s
On Arizona State: The top contact hitter on this Sun Devils team is graduate student infielder Conor Davis, who previously played in the SEC at Auburn. Davis is hitting .333 on the season with five home runs and 21 RBIs. He also has a .514 slugging percentage and a .448 on base percentage. As for power, redshirt sophomore outfielder Joe Lampe has eight home runs on the year to go along with 24 RBIs. He’s hitting .315 to go along with a .622 slugging percentage and a .387 on base percentage.
As a team, the Sun Devils are hitting .277 for 6.4 runs per game and 1.13 home runs per game. They have two other hitters (redshirt sophomore catcher/utility Nate Baez and sophomore infielder Ethan Long) who are also hitting at .300 or better. So, they definitely got some bats.
As far as their pitching staff is concerned, sophomore right-handed pitcher Tyler Meyer (2-0, 3.78 ERA) and redshirt junior right-handed pitcher Kyle Luckham (4-1, 3.80 ERA) are the top two starters. Both are off to really good starts and have the ability to pick up wins provided they get enough hitting.
Keys to the series: The first thing Stanford needs to do is their pitching needs to hold. A big issue on Tuesday was they weren’t rolling with one of their main starters, instead having the bullpen try to carry the game from start to finish. That seemed to throw them off. With a return to normalcy in that vein, Stanford’s pitching better be a lot better and more consistent. Alex Williams (2-1, 3.55 ERA) had a rough outing in their last Friday home game against Washington State. If he can get off to a good start on Friday and set a good tone, that would be huge.
Secondly, Stanford simply needs to convert when they have runners in scoring position. When they get hits when runners are in scoring position, they are very tough to stop. When they don’t, not so much. That’s kind of been what their offense has come down to in a lot of ways and if they’re going to win this series, that needs to be a strength of theirs.
Finally, Stanford needs to play with some passion. This is incredibly cliché, but after the way they got drubbed on Tuesday combined with the long speech David Esquer gave to them post-game, it’s clear that they need to answer the bell this weekend and show they are a lot better than they showed on Tuesday. They seemed to kind of roll over and die on Tuesday, which is why I think Esquer talked to them for as long as he did. He seemed to feel that way as well. Stanford needs to bring the energy in this series for sure.
Prediction: Stanford is at home and aside from the egg they laid on Tuesday, they’ve actually been playing quite well with a home sweep over Washington State and taking two out of three at Oregon State. I think Stanford will win the series this weekend, but Arizona State will take one game in the series.
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