On Friday, Stanford baseball defeated Xavier 10-2 to take game one of their four game series. Stanford right-handed pitcher Matt Scott (3-0) was the winning pitcher for the Cardinal, giving up five hits and two earned runs while striking out five batters in 6.0 innings pitched. Stanford 3rd baseman Trevor Haskins led the way for the Cardinal going 2-4 for three RBIs and one home run while left fielder Tatum Marsh went 1-3 for two RBIs. Xavier righty Jake Hooker (0-1) was the losing pitcher for the Musketeers in a starting role. Stanford improves to 9-0 overall while Xavier falls to 5-4.
BOX SCORE: Xavier at Stanford-Friday, February 28th
“It’s a tough ball game,” Stanford head coach David Esquer said after the game. “They’re a quality team and it was a game until the 8th or 9th inning and you know, the 8th inning and they make it hard on it. They were making some nice defensive plays to keep the game close. The game was tied, could go either way. I expected nothing less form them. They are a regional team every year.
“You know, they’re a mid-major that goes to a regional and I’ve seen them go to Vanderbilt, they’ve gone to Oregon, and they make noise in the playoffs and they’re not afraid of Stanford, right? I mean, even from here they’ve already played Oregon State twice, they played Indiana twice, after they leave here they go play Tennessee, then they go play Vanderbilt, and then they play LSU. So playing Stanford at Stanford is, that’s just par for the course. They played well and made us play well to win and we did. And so that was a good showing by us.”
Xavier was the first team to get on the board in the top of the 3rd inning with two runs as 1st baseman Connor Misch hit a two-RBI single with one out. Trevor Haskins answered for Stanford in the bottom of the 3rd with a two-run blast to left field to bring home Tatum Marsh after he was walked with no outs. Stanford wouldn’t add any more runs the rest of the inning, making it a 2-2 game at the end of the 3rd inning.
Of the next three innings, Xavier did not score, keeping it a 2-2 game entering the bottom of the 6th inning. Things got a little scary for Matt Scott in the top of the 5th inning as Xavier had runners on first and second base with zero outs. Fortunately for Stanford, Scott settled down and got out of the inning without giving up a run.
“I thought he was solid,” Esquer said of Scott. “It was great, you know, he let us know when he came out he still had pitches he could throw, but he hadn’t been feeling well during the week and so he gave us all he could for as long as he could. It was no other reason than that that, you know, he had been feeling under the weather a couple days and felt like we got enough out of him and then, you know, with three innings to go, we’ve got enough in the bullpen to piece it together and win.”
“I mean, definitely not my best stuff, but kind of battled through some more pitches and pitching to contact a little bit,” Scott said of his outing. “Kind of getting some weak contact and get out of some jams…Yeah, I mean, I was heavy slider. I think they were sitting on that a little bit. Able to kind of check it off, so I mean, once we got that split in there, I think it was kind of throwing them off a little bit, so I got a lot more read contact and a lot of early swings.”
In the bottom of the 6th inning, Stanford added a run as Temo Becerra flied out to bring home Jimmy Nati. Stanford would lead 3-2 at the end of the 6th inning.
In the top of the 7th inning, Ty Uber pitched for the Cardinal as Scott’s day on the mound was done. Jake Lambdin got walked for Xavier in the top of the 7th after which he advanced to third base thanks to an error at short stop while Carter Hendrickson got to first base. With runners on first and third base and no outs, Uber had to get Stanford out of a jam. And get Stanford out of a jam Uber did as he forced a forced a line out and then a double-play to end the top of the 7th inning. 3-2 Stanford still led as disaster was avoided.
In the bottom of the 7th inning, Stanford did not score any runs, keeping it a 3-2 game at the end of the inning. In the top of the 8th inning, Uber gave up a double to Misch in the first at-bat of the inning, ending his day on the mound. Stanford righty and closing pitcher Aidan Keenan then came in to get Stanford out of the jam. Keenan would deliver the goods as Xavier had runners on first and third base, but wasn’t able to tack on any runs as a strikeout ended the top of the inning.
In the bottom of the 8th inning, Stanford’s offense exploded for seven runs, ignited by a two-RBI triple by Tatum Marsh to bring home Charlie Bates and Brady Reynolds. Trevor Haskins later hit a double to bring home Marsh, Rintaro Sasaki hit a single to bring home Haskins, Jimmy Nati flied out to bring home Brett Blair, Brady Reynolds hit an RBI single to bring home Sasaki, and then thanks to a wild pitch Charlie Saum came home. That gave Stanford a 10-2 lead at the end of the 8th inning.
“Yeah, all game, swing felt good,” Marsh said. “Just missed the ball a little bit. So, especially getting down in the count, as I did, just being able to relax, just put the bats to the ball. Just keep it simple.”
“Big swing by Marsh,” Esquer said. “You know, the freshman’s had some clutch at-bats for us and then we just kind of piled on and got them to a point where they maybe just put some relievers in. You know, that they wouldn’t use in a leverage situation. Which is fine and our guys put some hits together and kept scoring. So it was a good inning for us.”
Thanks to having an eight run cushion, Stanford was able to save Keenan from pitching an extra inning as righty Ben Reimers came in to pitch in a non-save situation. Reimers got the job done with two straight strike outs followed by a fly out. 10-2 Stanford won the game.
“Yeah, that’s for sure,” Esquer said when asked if Keenan would have pitched the 9th inning in a save situation. “You want him to be that guy the game is decided by and so when we scored a couple runs, obviously, we have a chance to use him tomorrow. We got two games tomorrow. If you use him for two, we probably don’t use him tomorrow at this early in the season. We probably wait until Sunday’s game. So it allows us to have him available if there’s a save situation.”
“Yeah, I mean, they’re both dogs,” Scott said of Uber and Keenan. “You go out there and just get the ball to the bullpen. That’s all you can do. We got lot of horses back there, so it’s good to see.”
For Stanford, this was a really sound win. Xavier is a solid team and to have the offense explode like it did in the bottom of the 8th is simply awesome. They continue to impress people with their hitting and then hey, the pitching did its job, too.
“It’s awesome,” Marsh said of the offense. “Everyone on the team, like I know we put anyone out there and we’ll do what we did today. It’s just super fun to be a part of and just super lucky to be here.”
“That was fun, that was fun,” Scott said. “We just kind of showed that our offense can explode at any time. Even in a 3-2 game like that, it takes a lot of pressure off our pitching late in the game. Especially with a doubleheader tomorrow. So it’s huge.”
Up next for Stanford is game two and game three of the series on Saturday for a doubleheader. Game two will begin at 1:05 PM PT with the game three starting at 4:05 or 30 minutes after the ending of game two. Both games will air on ACCNX.
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