On Monday, Stanford baseball fell to Cal on the road by a final score of 5-3 in a non-league game. Cal righty Austin Turkington (2-1) was the winning pitcher for the Golden Bears in a relief role while righty Oliver Boone picked up his first save of the season. Stanford righty Ryan Speshyock (0-4) was the losing pitcher for the Cardinal in a relief role. Cal improves to 31-18 overall while Stanford falls to 20-29.
BOX SCORE: Stanford at Cal-Monday, May 13th
“Another tough one,” Stanford head coach David Esquer said after the game. “Just didn’t have enough to win. Didn’t pitch enough, didn’t hit enough, and yeah, just falling short. Actually, we’ve been used to being good at winning. Right now we’re getting a little good at falling just a little short. We’re still giving some experience to some young guys you know, with Volchko, Speshyock, and you know, I don’t think we’ve faced a freshman pitcher in the last month, but we keep consistently throwing out three or four. So, they’re getting some good experience. It’ll serve us well in the future. It’s a little bumpy, a little rough now, but you know what, that’s what we signed up for.”
The starting pitcher for Stanford in this one was righty Joey Volchko while Cal started righty Andres Galan. Volchko would pitch 5.0 innings, giving up two earned runs and striking out four batters. As for Galan, he went 4.2 innings, giving up two earned runs and striking out five batters.
“You know, ok,” Esquer said of Volchko’s outing. “Young, very talented, physically talented, right? You look on the board, there’s some 96s up there. But, still a little bit of a thrower, right? Still a little bit of a thrower. But able to compete and he’s getting better and better at pitching and using his stuff to hold teams down, so I think he’s done a good job as a starter. Much better than as a reliever and looks like he’s more comfortable there.”
Both teams scored two runs in the 2nd inning, making it 2-2 at the end of the inning. Charlie Saum hit a two-run homer for Stanford that cleared the left field fence, bringing home Temo Becerra in the top of the inning. In the bottom of the inning, Cal responded as Jag Burden and Dominic Smaldino each hit RBI singles to tie up the game.
Stanford would break the tie in the top of the 5th inning as Jimmy Nati hit a single through the left side to bring home Cort MacDonald, who was on third base. This made it a 3-2 lead for Stanford. Cal would not answer in the bottom of the inning, keeping it a 3-2 game at the end of the 5th.
Neither team scored in the 6th inning, but both teams had new pitchers in. Actually, Turkington came in to end the bottom of the 5th inning for Cal while Speshyock came in at the start of the 6th inning for Stanford. It remained 3-2 entering the 7th inning.
After Stanford failed to score in the top of the 7th, Cal responded in the bottom of the inning with two runs to lead 4-3 as Rodney Green, Jr. and Peyton Schulze hit back-to-back RBI doubles. Cal was now in the driver’s seat.
After Stanford once again went cold in the top of the 8th inning, Cal added one more run in the bottom of the inning as Smaldino hit a solo homer in the opening at-bat. That made it a 5-3 lead for Cal. Speshyock was not able to finish the inning for Stanford as Jaden Bruno came in to pitch the final 0.2 innings.
In the top of the 9th inning down by two runs, Stanford needed to find some life on offense and they just were not able to do so. Malcolm Moore, Brandon Larson, and Temo Becerra all struck out swinging. It just wasn’t the Cardinal’s night.
“Yeah, just big at bat with Malcolm there, could have given us a little boost with the first and third and one out and you kinda lean on your better guys to help you,” Esquer said reflecting on the 3rd inning. “And so, you need your best guys to perform in order for us to be the team and win games that we’d like to win and everyone’s gotta chip in around him. So, we get him going, I think we could maybe sneak out a couple wins.”
For Cal, even though this didn’t count for the league standings, this is still a nice win for them. Stanford was coming in hungry and eager to end a six game losing streak. To take care of business and pull away like they did has to feel good. While Stanford got the better of them at Sunken Diamond this season, Cal took both games in Berkeley this year and has had the better overall season. That’s a feather in their cap in terms of the rivalry.
As for Stanford, another disappointing outcome to what has been a frustrating and disappointing season. They knew growing pains would be there this year and that this is part of the process. But even so, I don’t think they expected things to go as bad as they have. At this point, all they can do is look ahead to the final series of the regular season at UCLA. That will determine whether or not they make the Pac-12 tournament, so they still have something to play for.
“UCLA is, if they’re gonna play well, they’re gonna play well at their place,” Esquer said. “And so, end of the season, we’ve got something to play for and they could make it hard for us. And so hey, we gotta do our best to win a couple games there and then get a chance to play in the tournament and play for something and that would be big for our guys to get a chance to play a couple games that mean something at the end of the season and see what happens.”
On that note, Stanford will next play on Thursday at UCLA. Opening pitch is set for 7:00 PM PT on Pac-12 Los Angeles and KZSU radio.
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