On Saturday, Stanford baseball defeated Cal State Fullerton in a road doubleheader to open up the regular season. In the first game, Stanford won by a final score of 13-1 in seven innings as junior Matt Scott was the winning pitcher in a starting role, striking out four batters and giving up four hits in 5.1 innings pitched. Jason Blood was the losing pitcher for the Titans in a starting role, giving up eight earned runs in just 1.0 innings pitched. Stanford freshman first baseman Rintaro Sasaki was the top offensive performer for the Cardinal in the first game with two hits for four RBIs while Temo Becerra, Brady Reynolds, and Jimmy Nati each had two RBIs.
As for game two, Stanford won by a final score of 6-3. Stanford sophomore Christian Lim was the winning pitcher for the Cardinal in a starting role, striking out four batters and giving up zero earned runs and zero hits in 6.0 innings. Fullerton’s Mikiah Negrete was the losing pitcher for the Titans in a starting role, giving up three hits and five runs in 6.0 innings pitched though ironically, none of those runs were earned due to errors by the defense. Temo Becerra was the top performer for the Cardinal in game two with one hit for two RBIs.
BOX SCORE: Stanford at CSU-Fullerton-Saturday, February 15th-Game 1
BOX SCORE: Stanford at CSU-Fullerton-Saturday, February 15th-Game 2
Starting with game one, Stanford came out of the gates on fire as they scored three runs in the top of the 1st inning. Brady Reynolds hit an RBI double to bring home Jimmy Nati, Nati hit a double to bring home Charlie Saum, and Rintaro Sasaki grounded out to bring home Cort MacDonald.
In the top of the 2nd inning, Stanford added five runs as freshman Charlie Bates got things going with a triple in the first at-bat of the inning and his career. MacDonald would hit a single to bring home Bates and advance Tatum Marsh to third base. Sasaki hit a single to bring home Marsh and load up the bases after which Saum got hit by a pitch to bring home MacDonald. Nati and Becerra later hit RBIs as well to close out the inning. Up 8-0 entering the bottom of the 2nd inning, Stanford was looking good.
Stanford would add a run in the top of the 4th inning to make it 9-0 as Reynolds hit a single to bring home Saum. Fullerton would finally get on the board in the top of bottom of the 6th inning to make it 9-1.
In the top of the 7th inning, Stanford added four more runs as Marsh scored on a balk with the bases loaded, Sasaki hit a two-RBI single, and then Becerra was walked with the bases loaded to bring home Sasaki. Fullerton wouldn’t score in the bottom of the inning, making it a 13-1 final score as the game ended due to the mercy rule.
In the second game, Stanford got off to a similarly hot start as they scored four runs in the top of the 1st inning. With Trevor Haskins on second base and Cort MacDonald on third base following a groundout from Sasaki to advance them, a throwing error at second base allowed Saum to get on first base while Haskins and MacDonald came home. Later on in the inning, Temo Becerra hit a two RBI-single to bring home Reynolds and Saum.
Stanford then went quiet the rest of the night, scoring one run in the top of the 6th as Reynolds reached on a fielder’s choice to bring home Saum and then scoring one run in the top of the 7th as Sasaki hit an RBI double to left center to bring home MacDonald.
As for Fullerton, they were able to add one run in the bottom of the 7th as Andrew Kirchner hit an RBI single, one run in the run in the bottom of the 8th as Jakob Schardt hit a an RBI single, and one run in the bottom of the 9th as Kirchner grounded out for an RBI. 6-3 would be the final score as Stanford cruised to their second win of the season.
For Stanford, this was a nice pair of wins for them. They pitched well, hit well, and did a good job of bringing home runs. Of course, the most exciting part was to see Sasaki hit so well. He had five RBIs across both games and made an immediate impact. While the season is in its infancy, Sasaki so far is looking like The real McCoy.
Up next for Stanford is a game against Fullerton on Sunday at 1:05 PM PT on ESPN+. That will be the third game of this four game series.
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