On Saturday, Stanford baseball defeated Arizona State 10-6 to win the second game of this three game weekend series. Sophomore right-handed pitcher Tommy O’Rourke (1-3) picked up the win for Stanford while junior left-handed pitcher Quinn Mathews (2) picked up his second save of the season. Arizona State redshirt junior right-handed pitcher Will Levine (2-2) was awarded the loss. Stanford improves to 16-10 overall and 8-6 in the Pac-12 while Arizona State falls to 14-18 overall and 5-6 in the Pac-12.
“Well you know, good for us we were a little more relentless on offense and we needed to be,” Stanford head coach David Esquer said after the game. “Because they kept answering when we scored and they took a little bit of an early lead and we came back and then every time we tacked on, they answered. And so, good game for our offense and hey, we just kept on shuttling pitchers in there until someone could hold them a little bit and I thought Uber did a nice job and Bruno there at the end. But it was a game that our offense had to really work out.”
Arizona State scored the first two runs of the game in the first two innings. In the top of the 1st inning, designated hitter Ethan Long hit a solo home run to left field to make it a 1-0 Sun Devils lead. In the top of the 2nd inning, 2nd baseman Nate Baez got in scoring position by doubling down the left field line after which he was driven home by a single to center field by right fielder Kai Murphy. 2-0.
Already off to a shaky start, Stanford starting pitcher Drew Dowd would be pulled in the top of the 3rd inning as center fielder Joe Lampe hit a single after which short stop Sean McLain got hit by a pitch. Ty Uber came in for relief, hoping to calm down the Arizona State batters. The move worked as Arizona State did not score in the inning. Uber did what he set out to do in that inning, which was stop the bleeding.
In the bottom of the 3rd inning, with one out, left fielder Eddie Park got walked to get on base. With two outs, center fielder Brock Jones would hit a triple, which drove Park home. Stanford was now on the board as it was a 2-1 game.
After neither team scored in the 4th inning and Arizona State was quiet in the top of the 5th inning, Stanford took the lead in the bottom of the 5th inning by scoring two runs. Designated hitter Vincent Martinez led things off with a home run to right field to tie up the game at 2-2. 3rd baseman Drew Bowser would then get walked after which Park hit a single to short stop advancing Bowser to second base. In the next at bat, short stop Adam Crampton would get on base via fielder’s choice as Bowser was out at third base. Jones would then get walked to load up the bases after which 1st baseman Carter Graham reached first base on an error, resulting in Park scoring. 3-2 Stanford lead. Brett Barrera hitting into a double play would end the inning.
“Oh he’s been great,” Esquer said of Martinez. “Man, he’s been great and clutch for us. Hey, he’s been so good they think he’s using an illegal bat. So, but he’s done great…Yeah, there’s a crack or a dent or something. And so, it’s nothing.”
In the top of the 6th inning, Arizona State would tie up the game. 1st baseman Conor Davis started off by hitting a single to center field. With one out, Davis would advance to third base as catcher Ryan Campos hit a single to left field. With two outs, Stanford decided to make a pitching change as Joey Dixon came in to pitch for Uber. With Dixon on the mound, Campos stole second base. After this, Murphy hit a single to short stop advancing Campos to third base and bringing home Davis. Cam Magee then lined out to end the inning. 3-3 game.
“So it was a total dog fight,” Graham said. “I mean Drew Dowd; Drew Dowd has picked us up all year long. He didn’t have his best stuff today and their starter, he came out really strong. So, we had a lot of guys have to step up. They went up early, Uber put them away. He pitched a big, really good innings for us, he gave us a chance to win and our offense kinda took care of it, finally got to that starter, and then got to the pen and one good batter after another we finally started to get that lead back and then our bullpen really picked us up today.”
In the bottom of the 6th inning, Stanford’s offense struck back by scoring two runs. Right fielder Braden Montgomery hit a single to second base. Then, catcher Kody Huff hit a single and advanced to second base thanks to an error while Montgomery advanced to second and third before then coming home to make it a 4-3 game. After Huff advanced to third base on a passed ball, he would be brought home thanks to Martinez flying out to right field. 5-3 Stanford lead. Bowser and Park grounded out to end the inning.
In the top of the 7th inning, Lampe got walked after which McLain got hit by a pitch. It was at this point that Stanford made another pitching change, taking out Dixon and bringing in O’Rourke. After Long flied out to right center, Lampe advanced to third base while McLain stayed at first base. Davis then hit a single to center field, driving in Lampe and advancing McLain to third base. In the next at-bat, Baez flied out to center field, advancing Davis to second base and bringing home McLain. Arizona State did not add any more runs in the inning. 5-5 game.
In the bottom of the 7th, Jones and Graham both got walked with one out followed by a single from Barrera to load up the bases. In the next at bat, Montgomery hit his first career grand slam. 9-5 Stanford lead. Stanford wouldn’t score any more runs in the rest of the inning, but that grand slam alone gave them a huge boost.
“Changeup,” Montgomery said of what he saw on the grand slam home run. “Historically, I haven’t been very good with changeups, so I mean, just step in the box whatever is throw in there, it’s a big situation, got a lot of guys. Gotta do a job. Don’t get cheated for any swings, so take good swing. I mean, the worst thing that happens is it gets the job done sac fly. The ball just happened to go out…I think that’s my first one ever. I mean, typically my home runs don’t come with many people on base and I think that’s the first one ever. It’s exciting.
“It just suffocates the other team. I mean, it’s big to have those situations like that. On a different day if the wind’s blowing in, they catch that ball, it’s not as big of a momentum switch and so it’s big for stuff like that to happen. It makes it, our job, easier when we’re on defense just to suffocate the other team.”
In the 8th inning, both teams would trade runs. Arizona State scored in the top of the 8th with Lampe lining out to left field to bring home Murphy, who was on third base. Stanford scored in the bottom of the 8th as Graham hit a double down the left field line to bring home Park, who was on third base as well. 10-6 game going into the 9th inning.
In the top of the 9th inning, things got a little dramatic as Campos got walked with one out after which Murphy got walked with two outs to advance Campos to second base. Ryan Bruno, who came on in the 8th inning to relieve Brandt Pancer, was pulled. Pancer had an even shorter stint as he came on in the top of the 8th inning to replace O’Rourke. The pitcher who replaced Bruno on the mound was Sunday’s projected starter Quinn Mathews, who in the end would get the save with just four pitches. It was a 10-6 victory for Stanford.
“It’s a quite a task, right?” Esquer said of managing a game with so many pitching changes. “I mean, it’s hot outside, the field’s hot and fast and the ball’s carrying. It’s not like playing at night where the air’s heavy and maybe things are a little quicker. Sometimes you gotta let the pitcher tell you whether they see him too well or not, right? And we had to throw strikes and it was the pitchers that were giving us that were throwing the most strikes were giving us the best chance.”
For Stanford, this is a big win as it ensures they win the series. Their bats came alive and found ways to respond when needed. The grand slam by Montgomery was obviously the biggest play, but this was really an all-around team effort. Different guys stepped up at different times and every time Arizona State had a punch, Stanford had a counter.
“Yeah, I mean, it was a really good team win,” Graham said. “I mean, there was big swings from every single guy up and down the lineup. Brock, Vinny, Brett, a lot of really big swings for us. It was huge. For me, I mean, didn’t start out the best personally for me today. But I mean, as a baseball player, throughout my experience, you know that doesn’t matter. So you just keep with it, just stick with your approach, and then good things happened at the end.
“So we kinda knew going into it, Esqy said early that we were going to need ten and he ended up right. Just with the game plan with how, with, usually after a Friday night when a guy like Alex Williams comes out and shoves the way he did, the team’s gonna be seeing the ball a little better that next day on a Saturday so you know your offense is going to have to step up a little more. Going into it we knew, we had all our faith in the world in Drew Dowd and we still do and he didn’t have his best stuff, but still gave us a chance to win and we knew we were going to have to score and our bullpen picked us up.”
For Braden Montgomery, hitting a grand slam is huge given what he went through earlier this week against Saint Mary’s. In that game he was the losing pitcher. In this game he was the hero. To bounce back like that says a lot about his mental toughness and the fact that he’s learning more about himself with each passing game.
“Well, he’s just getting better, right?” Esquer said of Montgomery. “He’s seeing more pitches and he’s getting hits off of the same pitches that were beating him early, right? So he’s not one dimensional where they keep getting him out the same time. So hitting that changeup out for a home run, that’s a big deal, right? Because changeup has beaten him before. But he’s making adjustments and he’s staying competitive and hey we needed it, that was the biggest hit of the game.”
“Yeah, I mean it’s huge,” Montgomery said of the personal bounce back. “After days like that, really after every day, you just gotta hit a quick reset. Past game, past, they didn’t matter. It’s on to the next one. So, it’s all behind us now. Even this game, we’re on to the next one.
“I’m definitely learning more about myself every day. As a person as a ball player and I have to adapt and adjust my game every day just based on how I feel that day. I mean, it’s not gonna be the same stance, same swing every single game and I realize that and I just gotta make adjustments. It’s a game of adjustments.”
Up next for Stanford is a home game on Sunday against Arizona State. That game will begin at 1:05 PM PT on Stanford Live Stream-2 and KZSU radio.
“Yeah, it’s tough,” Esquer said of the key to getting a sweep. “Winning three against anybody is tough. They’re gonna be playing for their lives and playing desperate. That’s a tough team to play and they’ve got enough talent over there to, as you saw today, to keep themselves in the game and make it hard on us. So, we’re going to have to play defense and we’re gonna have to stay relentless offensively. There’s never going be enough runs. Especially in the daytime. It’s probably going to be warm and fast and we gotta be ready for that.
“They’re so hard to come by,” Esquer said of getting a sweep. “Coach Marquess when he was here, he always used to say that when you get the opportunity to sweep somebody and when you’re down 0-2, don’t get swept because those could be the keys to the season. So opportunities to win three are big and opportunities not to lose three are huge and could turn your season around. So when you have that opportunity, you want to take advantage of it, but as you look around the conference and the country, there’s a lot of teams that lose the first two and find a way to win the next one. They’re hard to come by.”
Note: Stanford baseball wasn’t the only team to get a big win on the diamond on Saturday. Stanford softball picked up a huge 1-0 home victory over #2/#3 UCLA, ending the Bruins' 25-game winning streak.
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