On Friday, Stanford baseball fell to No. 25 Georgia Tech at home by a final score of 8-6. Georgia Tech righty Mason Patel (8-1) was the winning pitcher for the Yellow Jackets in a relief role while Stanford righty Joey Volchko (2-1) was the losing pitcher for the Cardinal in a starting role. Georgia Tech improves to 24-6 overall and 9-4 in the ACC while Stanford falls to 17-10 overall and 5-8 in the ACC.

BOX SCORE: Georgia Tech at Stanford-Friday, April 4th

“We put up a good fight,” Stanford head coach David Esquer said after the game. “We put up a fight for them and they had to earn it and went to their best guy early and he rode, he did. A nice job. He’s mastered one pitch. A good solid pitch to go with his fastball. We had some opportunities, but he held us at bay, and I thought we did a good job against their Friday starter, who was very good. We gotta do a better job. We gotta do a better job on the mound. Starting pitchers gotta do a better job and then we gotta support them with maybe a little more, a few more runs.”

Georgia Tech got off to a strong start as they led 4-0 at the end of the 2nd inning. In the top of the 1st inning, Kyle Lodise got walked and later advanced to third base thanks to a throwing error. Alex Hernandez would then hit a single to right center to bring home Lodise. That made it a 1-0 lead. In the top of the 2nd, the Yellow Jackets scored three more runs as Vahn Lackey hit a solo homer to make it 2-0 before Lodise later hit a two-RBI double to left center to make it 4-0. It was a rough start for Joey Volchko on the mound.

Stanford would get on the board in the bottom of the 3rd inning after Volchko got three straight batters out in the top of the 3rd. With one out and Ethan Hott on third base, Trevor Haskins flied out to right field to bring Hott home. That made it 4-1.

After Volchko got three straight batters out in the top of the 4th inning, Stanford scored four runs in the bottom of the inning to lead 5-4. Jimmy Nati got walked after which a single by Brady Reynolds advanced Nati to third base. Charlie Saum then reached first base on a fielder’s choice while a throwing error at third base advanced Reynolds to second base and brought Nati home. Temo Becerra then hit a single through the left side to bring home Reynolds and advance Saum to second base. That made it 4-3. Hott then executed a sacrifice bunt to advance Becerra to second base and Saum to third base for the first out. Tatum Marsh then singled through the left side to advance Becerra to third base and bring home Saum. That tied it up 4-4. Haskins then flied out to right field to bring home Becerra. That made it 5-4. Marsh would then be out at second base as he was caught stealing to end the inning.

Stanford’s 5-4 lead was short-lived as Georgia Tech scored three runs in the top of the 5th. With the bases loaded and two outs, Ty Uber was now on the mound for the Cardinal as Volchko had a rough start to the inning. Uber would throw a wild pitch to bring a runner home to tie it up 5-5. Uber then walked a batter to load up the bases before Tyler Neises doubled to right center to bring home Alex Hernandez and Drew Burress. That made it 7-5.

“We took the lead and got it to 5-4 and then proceed to give up three and that’s just baseball. You can’t do that,” Esquer said. “You score and you take the lead, you need to put up a zero. However that is, however that is. And so, it didn’t happen and it just kind of shows you a little bit where we’re struggling.”

In the 6th inning, both teams traded runs. Georgia Tech added a run as Caleb Daniel hit an RBI single before subsequently getting out trying to reach second base. In the bottom of the 6th, Stanford added a run as Marsh flied out to right field to bring home Becerra. That made it an 8-6 lead for Georgia Tech at the end of the 6th inning.

From there, neither team scored as 8-6 ended up being the final score. Mason Patel did a great job of shutting down the Cardinal offense down the stretch of the game, pitching the final 4.1 innings. Stanford just couldn’t generate much offense after showing some life in the bottom of the 4th inning.

For Stanford, this is a disappointing loss since they had their chances. They were hoping that by giving Joey Volchko the start instead of Matt Scott, that might make a difference, but no matter how you slice it, the starting pitching remains a major Achilles heel for this Cardinal team.

“We thought Matt needed a little, some work,” Esquer said of the decision to push Scott’s start to Sunday. “He had been struggling a little bit. Thomas [Eager] wanted to spend a little extra time with him in the bullpen and get him off the mound twice this week to work on some things. So that would force him to push back a little bit.”

At this point, all that Stanford can do is bounce back on Saturday and even the series (2:05 PM PT on ACCNX). Sophomore lefty Christian Lim will be getting the start for the Cardinal. He’s had a rough start to his season with a 2-3 record and 7.88 ERA. Now would be a good time for him to get rolling.

“He’s gonna have to have his best performance of the year,” Esquer said of Lim. “That might be a World Series team. That might be a World Series team. We’re playing a really quality team that looks like it could be an Omaha team. We’re gonna have to play well. And now we’re sharpening our team up against it, but we’re gonna have to figure it out.”

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