On Friday, No. 14 Stanford baseball fell to Cal at home by a final score of 13-3, ending in seven innings due to the run rule (a.k.a. mercy rule). Cal righty Austin Turkington (4-2) was the winning pitcher for the Golden Bears in a starting role while Stanford righty Matt Scott (4-1) was the losing pitcher for the Cardinal in a starting role. Cal catcher Alex Birge was the top performer for the Golden Bears going 2-2 for two home runs and three RBIs while Stanford first baseman Rintaro Sasaki was the top performer for the Cardinal going 3-4 for one RBI. Cal improves to 11-10 overall and 3-4 in the ACC while Stanford falls to 15-4 overall and 5-2 in the ACC.
BOX SCORE: Cal at Stanford-Friday, March 21st
“God, that was just an old fashioned ass kicking,” Stanford head coach David Esquer said after the game. “Yeah, they played better than us. They did everything better than we did. They pitched better, they hit better, they hit more home runs, they defended better. They played a really good game and I knew they were capable of that.
“You know, not to give ourselves any out, but you know, been through it a lot, you never know how you come out of finals. Sometime you hit the ground running; sometimes you play better than you did when you stop; sometimes you play like you haven’t played in two weeks. So, kind of uncharacteristic for us, but we don’t have much time to get our game back because obviously that team can play very well and they beat a quality Friday night starter, right? But then we’re gonna see the measure of our team after our Friday guy gets beat, right? Then we’ve gotta see what Lim and Volchko do with the ball after our Friday guy gets beat. So, it’s good for us in the sense that we gotta experience this. It’s gonna happen and so we’re continuing trying to find out what kind of team we have.”
This game was one-way traffic for the Bears from the jump. In the top of the 1st inning, Alex Birge hit a solo home run to left center and then in the top of the 2nd inning, the Bears added five more runs to lead 6-0 as Seth Gwynn hit a line out to bring home a runner, Carl Schmidt hit a two-RBI single, and Jarren Advincula hit a two-RBI home run to right field. Matt Scott did not get out of the 2nd inning as Ben Reimers had to get the final out of the inning after Scott had given up six runs.
Stanford added a run in the bottom of the 3rd inning as Rintaro Sasaki hit an RBI single to bring home Tatum Marsh and then a run in the bottom of the 4th inning as Tatum Marsh reached on a fielder’s choice to bring home Temo Becerra. In the bottom of the 5th, Stanford added one more run as Jimmy Nati hit an RBI single to bring home Brandon Larson. That made it 6-3.
Unfortunately for Stanford, Cal added four runs in the top of the 6th to make it 10-3 as Ryan Speshyock, Trevor Moore, and Cohen Gomez all saw the mound for the Cardinal. Ryan Tayman hit an RBI double, Jacob French hit a two-RBI triple, and then French scored on a wild pitch from Gomez. It was that kind of night.
“Yeah, and we got a game on Monday,” Esquer said of managing the pitching this weekend. “So a little bit, the guys that we stuck in there to see if they could keep it a game kept it a game and then we went back to our normal end of the game guys and they got beat up again. So, they beat our best guys. They beat Matt Scott and they got to Trevor Moore. Those are the guys, you know, typically I thought Reimers did a good job holding us right there and Speshyock got us out of an inning as well. Just again, once we got to 6-3, I think it was, we needed a zero to kind of keep it close and they were able to extend off our normal bullpen.”
Cal added three more runs in the top of the 7th as Schmidt hit an RBI double before Birge hit a two-run homer. That made it 13-3. In the bottom of the 7th, Stanford was unable to score, putting the run rule into effect as Cal won 13-3 with the game ending in seven innings.
For Cal, this is a great win. They went on the road and beat the No. 14 team in the nation against a pitcher in Matt Scott that came in 4-0. Cal hit well, they pitched well, they defended well, and played an all-around great game.
As for Stanford, this was a stinker. They got out played in all dimensions of the game and were never in it. They’ve been playing really well this season and came in as heavy favorites to take the series. Now they have to respond on Saturday to get a split and force a series deciding game on Sunday.
“Well, a little bit of it is just like, hey, we gotta absorb it like you absorb a punch in the mouth, right?” Esquer said of his message to the team. “You don’t accept it, but you gotta absorb it and then you gotta respond. So hopefully we’ll come out, I think we’ll come out and play better tomorrow.”
On that note, Saturday’s game will be at 2:05 PM PT on ACCNX. Stanford sophomore lefty Christian Lim (2-2, 5.70 ERA) vs. Cal redshirt freshman Gavin Eddy (1-1, 1.52 ERA) is the projected starting pitching matchup.
“Yeah, you’re right, I think in that sense it’s good, right?” Esquer said of Lim having the pressure of the series on his arm. “In the sense like we’re gonna need a good performance and we’re gonna need to, obviously a good performance for our number two and number three. Which, you know, we’ve won every Friday up until now. So, two and three have just been playing to win the series or sweep a series. So, this is important for them to get us back in the series and hopefully come out and win the series.”
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