After losing on Saturday by a final score of 10-3, Stanford baseball suffered an even worse defeat to No. 25 Georgia Tech on Sunday by a final score of 18-2 in a game that ended after seven innings. Stanford righty Matt Scott (4-2) was the losing pitcher for the Cardinal in a starting role while Georgia Tech righty Caden Spivey (2-0) was the winning pitcher for the Yellow Jackets in a starting role. Georgia Tech improves to 26-6 overall and 11-4 in the ACC while Stanford falls to 17-12 overall and 5-10 in the ACC.
BOX SCORE: Georgia Tech at Stanford-Sunday, April 6th
“That was a rough one,” Stanford head coach David Esquer said after the game. “You’re in that funk. Hard to explain. I think we’re a better team than that, but it seems like when we’re in the game the middle relief pitching has been turning over some numbers, so that’s not good. And we were uncharacteristic. We didn’t offense at all today, which we normally have done that pretty consistently. So, just a weekend. Yeah and it’s gonna take some character to rebound and so I’m hoping we can look back at this at some point in time during this year and just be amazed at how we could be that bad.”
Georgia Tech got off to a nice start, scoring in the top of the 1st inning. After Kyle Lodise hit a double to left field, Drew Burress and Caleb Daniel hit back-to-back fly outs to bring home Lodise, making it a 1-0 game. Georgia Tech wouldn’t add any more runs the rest of the inning. Stanford wouldn’t score in the bottom of the 1st, keeping it a 1-0 game.
In the top of the 2nd inning, Georgia Tech added three runs to make it 4-0. Tyler Neises was walked with one out after which he stole second base. John Giesler then hit a single and advanced to second base thanks to an error while Neises came home. Lodise then hit a two-run blast to left field. Georgia Tech wouldn’t score any more runs the rest of the inning. In the bottom of the 2nd, Stanford added one run as Charlie Saum grounded into a double play to bring home Temo Becerra. That made it 4-1.
It would remain 4-1 for the next couple of innings until the top of the 5th inning when the Yellow Jackets started to pull away for good. The Yellow Jackets added one run in the top of the 5th thanks to a single from Vahn Lackey. In the top of the 6th inning, they added four runs as Caleb Daniel hit a grand slam. That made it 9-1. And then in the top of the 7th inning, they added nine more runs to make it 18-1. As part of that nine-run onslaught in the top of the 7th, Caleb Daniel hit a two-run homer and then Nathaneal Coupet hit a grand slam.
Stanford added one run in the bottom of the 7th to make it 18-2 as Ethan Hott got hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to bring home Luke Lavin. That would be all that the Cardinal would add to their total as 18-2 would be the final score after seven innings due to the run rule that the ACC has agreed to.
For Stanford, this game was simply a disaster. The pitching went to hell in a hand basket as Matt Scott, Sam Garewal, Ty Uber, Ben Reimers, and Cohen Gomez all struggled mightily. And then the bats went quieter than church mice. Just an all-around terrible outing. A lot of this seems to be mental.
“It always is when you’re not playing well,” Esquer said of the mental side. “And then you’re playing a really good team. And let’s give them credit. Again, I said that yesterday. That might be an Omaha team. Certainly just a lineup with a couple of stars and they’re really good right up the middle from catcher to short, second base, and center field. They really got strength right up the spine.”
The only real positive from this weekend for Stanford was the fact that this was “Players’ Weekend”, which featured some cool promos to help fans get to know the players better. There were some fun dishes cooked up in honor of different players. The Chicken Katsudon in honor of Rintaro Sasaki was delicious and then I’m sure the others that I didn’t get to try were delicious as well.
“I had one, it was Lim’s Lemon Pepper Wings,” Stanford pitcher Christian Lim said on Saturday. “I haven’t had any of the dishes yet, but I mean it’s cool, you know. I think it’s the team’s first year doing anything like this. We’ve never really had like, I don’t think the fans have had this much access to the players before and then I think it’s been really fun. That’s my favorite flavor of wing and Lim, Lemon, kind of like that LL, yeah, a little alliteration going. It kind of rhymes, too.”
Up next for Stanford is a home game against UC Davis on Monday. That will begin at 6:05 PM PT on ACCNX. Nick Dugan is the projected starter for the Cardinal.
“I think we just got to work through some things and get to playing good baseball,” Esquer said. “Hopefully Dugan can give us a good outing tomorrow and just get some guys some work and get some bats in and play good baseball.”
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