On Tuesday, Stanford baseball defeated Santa Clara 6-5 in a game that went into the 10th inning. Stanford righty Kassius Thomas (1-0) was the winning pitcher for the Cardinal in a relief role while Santa Clara righty Caden Wooster (0-2) was the losing pitcher for the Broncos in a relief role. Brandon Larson hit the game-winning RBI for the Cardinal in a pinch hitter role. Stanford improves to 17-9 overall (5-7 in the ACC) while Santa Clara falls to 12-13 overall (1-2 in the WCC).
BOX SCORE: Santa Clara at Stanford-Tuesday, April 1st
“Good win,” Stanford head coach David Esquer said after the game. “You know, down 4-0, you know, when you play these Tuesday games and people are going to move pitchers in and out, you know, giving up a four is a big deal. So getting down by four, but our guys kind of clawing back was big. Ryan Speshyock did a great job out of the pen and then Uber was good out of the pen. Kassius Thomas obviously there at the end. So, it was a tough game. They’re not coming easy for us, obviously, right? But no shame in winning this game. They’re supposed to be tough and our guys did a good job of pulling this one out.”
Santa Clara got off to a strong start, scoring four runs in the top of the 1st inning as Stanford starting pitcher Nick Dugan was unable to make it out of the inning. Dylan Joyce hit an RBI single for the Broncos after which Johnny Luetzow hit a three-RBI double down the left field line. At this point, Dugan’s day was done as Ryan Speshyock had to come in for relief and end the inning. In the bottom of the 1st inning, Rintaro Sasaki and Tatum Marsh would hit a pair of singles, but no runs were scored. That kept it a 4-0 lead for the Broncos at the end of the 1st inning.
Speshyock would pitch the 2nd and 3rd innings for Stanford, not allowing any runs. The problem for Stanford is they did not score in either inning, keeping it a 4-0 game. As for the top of the 4th inning, Ben Reimers came in to pitch for Stanford. Reimers gave up a double to Joyce, but no runs. That kept it a 4-0 game going into the bottom of the 4th inning.
In the bottom of the 4th, Stanford scored their first run as Cort MacDonald reached first base on a fielder’s choice with the bases loaded to bring home Jimmy Nati. That made it the second out of the inning as Temo Becerra was out at second base. Stanford wouldn’t add any more runs the rest of the inning, making it a 4-1 game at the end of the 4th.
Stanford opted to go the lefty route in the top of the 5th inning as Sam Garewal came in to pitch for Reimers. Garewal did not give up a hit or allow anyone to get on base, as he forced a foul out, ground out, and then a strike out.
Stanford added two runs in the bottom of the 5th to make it 4-3. Nati hit an RBI single to bring home Marsh, who was on third base after a double and a stolen base. Becerra later singled to bring home Nati. Down one run at the end of the 5th inning, Stanford now had some life.
Garewal would pitch another three and out inning in the top of the 6th inning after which Trevor Haskins hit a solo shot to left field. That tied up the game 4-4. Rintaro Sasaki would get then get walked only to later get called out for stealing second base to end the inning.
“The home run, yeah, I think I just got a hanging slider, wasn’t trying to do too much with that,” Haskins said. “I was just trying to start the inning off and get on for Tatum who is behind me…It feels great. Just trying to keep a simple plan up there. I think when you start getting big, that’s when you start chasing like we saw on that last at-bat. But, when you keep it simple, just go up there and not trying to do too much but put barrel behind ball. Hopefully get results like that home run you saw.”
“Yeah, you know, pretty good,” Esquer said of Haskins’ home run. “And the conditions weren’t home run conditions, right? So that was a real one. If you hit it here at night, you’ve hit a real home run and so we missed a little bit. Ethan Hott just a little bit left on his that went foul, but big hit by Haskins for sure.”
In the 7th inning, both teams traded runs, making it 5-5. Malcolm Williams hit an RBI single up the middle for Santa Clara while Becerra flied out to right field to bring home Nati who was on third base. To touch quickly on the pitching, Garewal did not pitch the 7th inning for Stanford as Trevor Moore came in for relief. So, it was Moore that gave up the run in the top of the 7th.
Neither team would score in the 8th or 9th innings. Toran O’Harran would get the first two outs of the 8th inning for Stanford on the mound while Ty Uber came in to get the final out.
In the top of the 10th inning, Stanford found themselves in a bit of a bind as there were runners on first and second base with one out. That ended Uber’s day on the mound as Kassius Thomas came in to save the day. Thomas would walk the first batter he faced, loading up the bases. But then, Thomas found his groove, getting back-to-back strike outs to end the top of the inning and keeping it a 5-5 game.
“Yeah, great job,” Esquer said of Thomas. “He’s been getting better and put himself into position to pitch big innings and he was the guy to go to there. We didn’t want to use too many pitches of Ty with the weekend coming up and so he went as far as we were going to let him go and then it was Kassius’ turn and you know, he did a great job getting those two strikeouts.”
In the bottom of the 10th, Stanford was able to finally win the game. With one out, Becerra reached first base on an error and advanced to second base. Brandon Larson then came in to pinch hit for JJ Moran and hit a single to left center, bringing home Becerra. That ended the game as Stanford won 6-5. Stanford rushed the field in joy while Larson got doused with a bucket of water, which looked rather uncomfortable given it was cold out.
“Great job by him,” Esquer said of Larson. “He had been struggling just a little bit and we had, you know, gone a little bit righty-lefty with the DH spot, you know, at Virginia they pitched a couple of lefties the last two days. But he kind of stayed, he just stayed ready. And so as soon as we had that opportunity to get another right-hander in there, you know, he was the guy to go to and just a big hit. A big hit. And someone who didn’t sit on the bench, feel sorry for himself because things hadn’t been going his way. But he stepped in there and got a hit. It was a great.”
“Yes, that’s correct,” Larson said of being doused with water. “I was pretty cold. I mean, Kash gave me his jacket. Shout out to him, but luckily it didn’t hit my upper body. Just got me like, you know, my pants and my cleats and stuff. So, I wasn’t super cold, but you know, a little more chilly for sure.”
For Stanford, this is obviously a nice win given their recent struggles in ACC play. They’ve been swept in back-to-back series and have desperately needed to find something to ignite a spark. Perhaps this win will do that for them.
“It really is,” Esquer said of the importance of winning midweek games. “We’re trying to build momentum again, you know, we kind of had it and then we lost it. And so, it could be just these any small moments that could start building some momentum. We’re gonna need it, because you know, these weekends are like, I say it over and over, they’re literally like playing a super-regional against that quality of an opponent and it’ll test us and sharpen us, but they’re definitely, it’s about winning one game at a time from here on out.”
“I mean, it’s just momentum,” Larson echoed. “This series didn’t go the way we wanted this past weekend, but you know, so we knew we had to come out here, you know, get the ball rolling, get some momentum back and you know, we were able to do that. So, hopefully we take that into next weekend against a really good opponent.”
Up next for Stanford is a home series against No. 25 Georgia Tech. Game one will be on Friday at 6:05 PM PT on ACCNX.
“It’s pretty important,” Larson said of the upcoming series against the Yellow Jackets. “They’re, like I said, a really good opponent. You know, I think if we do really well, we could kind of get back on track a little bit. Yeah, we just got to play our best brand of baseball. We know our work is kind of cut out for us, so we’re just gonna, you know, prepare as well as we can going into this weekend.”
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