On Saturday, No. 8 Stanford baseball fell to Texas A&M by a final score of 8-5 in their home regional of the NCAA Tournament. Brandyn Garcia (3-3) was the winning pitcher for the Aggies in a relief role while Troy Wansing (2) was awarded the save. Drew Dowd (9-3) was the losing pitcher for the Cardinal in a relief role.

BOX SCORE: Texas A&M at Stanford-Saturday, June 3rd

“Well, we certainly didn’t make things easy on ourselves,” Stanford head coach David Esquer said after the game. “Almost in classic Stanford regional fashion. We tend to make it a little hard, but hey, A&M played a good ball game. They did obviously a great job of running in a bunch of arms in there over and over again. I think that’s kinda been their style as of late and took advantage. They got a big hit in the same spot that we didn’t get the big hit. I think we’ve left runners at second and third or bases loaded. We had a couple opportunities where contact would have been our ally and we just didn’t have those good team at-bats or just that with good fortune there. I think we pulled a couple balls on the ground in situations we could have worked to the middle a little bit.

“And so, when you play playoff baseball against good people, you find out. If you can’t piece together all those little things, sometimes you find yourself in the game that maybe you could have created some separation and affected the outcome a little bit more. So, I think it’s a little bit on our side. We just didn’t execute as well. We didn’t play a good enough ball game and I think we both had the same type of games to play. They just happened to get the big hit in the big spot and they scored I think six runs after the sixth inning to kinda take that game from us.

“So, whether it was the two run double or the bases loaded double, that’s five runs on two hits I think they had two big hits for us. We were looking for a couple opportunities just to make contact to score. Of course we would have taken a couple doubles in those situations, too. Probably would have added to our lead. So, in the end A&M played a really good game and just kinda kept it on us a little bit. Hats off to our guys, they don’t quit and they fight to the end, so having a go-ahead run at the plate there at the end is kinda indicative. Just how our guys play. They just won’t let up.”

This game got off to a hot start as both teams scored in the opening inning. In the top of the 1st, the Aggies scored as Jordan Thompson grounded out to 3rd base to bring home Hunter Haas, who was on third base. Haas was hit by a pitch and advanced to third base by a single from Jack Moss. In the bottom of the 1st, Stanford responded as Braden Montgomery hit a two-run homer with two outs to bring home Carter Graham. It was a 2-1 lead for the Cardinal at the end of the inning.

In the 2nd and 3rd innings, Stanford added a run while holding the Aggies scoreless. In the bottom of the 2nd, Eddie Park singled up the middle to advance Owen Cobb to second base and bring home Malcolm Moore, who was on second base. This forced a pitching change as Evan Ashenbeck had to finish the inning for A&M as Justin Lamkin’s day on the mound was done.

In the bottom of the 3rd, Malcolm Moore doubled to right field to bring home Alberto Rios, who was on second base after hitting a single to third base and advancing thanks to a throwing error. 4-1 lead for the Cardinal at the end of three innings.

At this point, Texas A&M started to make their comeback. In the top of the 4th inning with one out, Austin Bost hit a double to left center after which Brett Minnich did the same, bringing Bost home. A&M wouldn’t score any more runs the rest of the inning, making it a 4-2 game entering the bottom of the inning. In the bottom of the 4th, Stanford failed to score, keeping it 4-2 at the end of the inning.

In the 5th inning, neither team scored, though A&M did make a pitching change with one out after Drew Bowser and Alberto Rios were on base with one out. Ashenbeck was replaced on the mound by Garcia, who went on to be the winning pitcher.

In the top of the 6th inning, A&M tied the game up. With two outs, Brett Minnich was walked after which Max Kaufer was walked. At this point, Joey Dixon’s day on the mound for the Cardinal was done as Drew Dowd came in to replace him.

“Joey did a good job for us tonight,” Esquer said of Dixon’s performance. “Getting the game started. He left with the lead. I think we could have supported him a little bit better with a few more runs and allow him to pitch a little more comfortably. But, he’s done what he’s done for us. Just, for the past eight weeks, I think which is just get us into the sixth inning or so with a chance to win and he did that again tonight.”

“Lots of fastballs,” Dixon said of what was working for him. “Probably the most fastballs I’ve thrown in a long time. Just kinda attacking them pretty early with that and then just flowing everything after that with off-speed off the heater.”

Haas then doubled to left center to bring home both runners after which Moss flied out to left field to end the top of the inning. 4-4 was the score. In the bottom of the 6th, Stanford didn’t respond, keeping it 4-4 at the end of the inning.

“Well, we went to a guy who had been doing very well for us,” Esquer said of the pitching change. “And giving Joey every opportunity to kinda work through that inning and then go to an arm that we thought has done a great job for us. We’ve been handing that baton often this year and it’s kinda been our recipe is go from Dowd to Bruno or let Dowd run a little bit and they came up with a big hit and again like I said, in those situations, getting a hit off of Dowd is no different than our guy having a chance to get a hit with the bases loaded or second and third in the same spot.

“We didn’t come through and they did and they did it twice and so we talk about it a lot that sometimes you get to these games and your guy has gotta beat their guy. It just comes down to that. And they did that twice to win the ball game.”

In the 7th inning, neither team scored or made a pitching change. With two innings to go, it was a tie game. Both teams were looking for a way to get across the finish line.

In the top of the 8th, A&M answered with three runs as Haas doubled down the left field line with the bases loaded to bring home all three runners. A&M wouldn’t score the rest of the inning as Toran O’Harran had to finish the inning on the mound for Stanford, making it a 7-4 game entering the bottom of the 8th.

In the bottom of the 8th, Stanford didn’t score, keeping it a 7-4 game with one inning to go. Garcia did not pitch the 8th inning for the Aggies as Matt Dillard came in for relief. While Stanford didn’t score, they did have a chance to keep the inning alive with two outs as Tommy Troy singled to second base with two outs as the ball got lost in the lights. Rather than staying at first, Troy made a miscalculation by going for second base, getting tagged out with relative ease. That was an unfortunate base running error on his part.

“Sometimes you get kids that just try too hard,” Esquer said of Troy’s base running error. “The timing of that probably wasn’t there base on when the ball was gonna fall, but some kids when they think that they hit a ball that maybe looks like it’s gonna be in the outfield, they just hustle all the way through without really paying attention and so I don’t fault him. He was trying hard, but it was, the timing of it probably was a hold to a single type ball and it bounced right up to Jack and he made a nice throw over there. But in retrospect, probably would have been best served to hold at one there. Especially since we were down by three at that time. It wasn’t like he was putting the tying run in scoring position.”

In the top of the 9th, A&M added one more run as Bost flied out to right field for the second out to bring home Laviolette, who was on third base. Minnich then got out due to batter’s interference, making it an 8-4 game with the bottom of the 9th to go.

In the bottom of the 9th, Stanford was down to their last out with nobody on base and found a way to score a run and have the winning run at the plate. Rios got walked after which Moore got hit by a pitch. Bowser then singled through the left side to bring home Rios and advance Moore to second base. This made it an 8-5 game.

At this point, Dillard’s day was done on the mound as Troy Wansing came in to finish the job. After hitting Temo Becerra with a pitch, Wansing now had the bases loaded with Owen Cobb coming to the plate. Cobb had a chance to win the game with a home run, but instead he flied out to right field, ending the game. 8-5 was the final.

“In the 9th inning we played a little desperate,” Esquer said. “We played a little better. You know what, we got three games of desperate to play. Hopefully it can help us further onto our best baseball.

“Well, just to know that you can. Just know that when your back is up against the wall and we’re gonna ask for some performances. There’s gonna be a heroic performance here before we’re all said and done if it’s gonna go our way and guys are gonna get opportunities and just sometimes just to, it’s a little exciting to figure out who’s gonna have those outings and who is gonna have that at-bat. Who’s gonna have that experience that’s gonna allow us to move on here and beating A&M twice if that’s, we got Fullerton first and we got our hands full with Fullerton.

“Stanford-Fullerton games are classic and then if we’re lucky enough to make it through that, then you gotta beat A&M twice. So, we’ll go one at a time, but again, with our backs up against the wall, I’m anxious to see how our team plays and kinda unfolds some of these stories of some of these heroes of a regional hopefully.”

For Texas A&M this is a huge win. They now get to rest in the morning and only focus on winning one game. Stanford battled hard all the way until the end, but the Aggies played the better game and deserved to come out on top.

“What a ball game,” Texas A&M head coach Jim Schlossnagle said after the game. “I thought that was as entertaining of a game for a fan as you’d ever want. We have great respect for Stanford. Their lineup is so competitive, so deep. We really got out of some jams. They had some unlucky liners. One to Hunter, one to Jack. And just got our team together after the first five innings with us being down and we don’t have too many team meetings, but just told’em hey men, we’re lucky to be within a couple runs. They won the first half of the game, we gotta find a way to win the second half of the game…That was a heavy weight title fight and we just need to get some rest and be ready to go tomorrow.”

As for Stanford, they’ve been in this position before. Last year, they lost their second game of the regional and came back to win three in a row. The fact that they have been in this spot should give them some comfort, but now they have to go out and execute.

Up next for Stanford is a noon game on Sunday against Cal State Fullerton. The winner will advance to the regional final against Texas A&M, which will be played at 6:00 PM PT on Sunday. If A&M loses on Sunday, then an elimination game will be played on Monday.

“Well, right and a little bit is you can’t look too far forward,” Esquer said of the pitching situation going forward. “We gotta go one at a time. So we know between Matt Scott, who will probably get first crack at it tomorrow and then we got Dugan and then it’s probably gonna look like if we get to the game seven it’ll look like game sevens of past. We’re gonna try to piece it together and patch it and see who can go one, two, and one and we’ve done that a couple times with some success. A little bit. A&M is used to that. You can tell that they probably didn’t run a guy out there that they couldn’t bring back at least one more time. So, that seems to be kinda their strategy which will probably serve them well.”

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