Over the weekend, Stanford baseball took two out of three games at No. 13 NC State on the road in Raleigh, North Carolina. Stanford dropped the game on Friday by a final score of 7-2 before winning 4-3 in 10 innings on Saturday and 6-3 on Sunday. Aidan Keenan (2-3) was the winning pitcher for the Cardinal on Saturday in a relief role. On Sunday, Kassius Thomas (1-1) picked up the win in a relief role while Ty Uber (3) picked up the save. Stanford finishes the regular season 27-24 overall and 11-19 in the ACC. Stanford head coach David Esquer picked up his 800th career win going back to his days at Cal.
Jimmy Nati was the top offensive performer for Stanford on Saturday, going 2-4 for one home run and three RBIs while Rintaro Sasaki was the top performer on Sunday, going 1-3 for three RBIs. Both guys really came to play. Of course, the pitching did its job on Saturday and Sunday giving up only three runs in each game. Nick Dugan got the start on Saturday, pitching 5.1 innings and giving up three runs while the bullpen (Toran O’Harran & Aidan Keenan) closed it out without giving up a run.
As for Sunday, it was a pitch by committee effort as eight different pitchers pitched in the game with Ryan Speshyock getting the most innings at 2.0. That was the most impressive part of the weekend for sure. The pitch by committee efforts have been a challenge all season long for Stanford. To get it done against a ranked ACC team on the road has to give the entire pitching staff a lot of confidence.
Looking ahead, Stanford has the ACC tournament. Stanford got the No. 13 seed and will face No. 12 Virginia Tech on Tuesday at 10:00 AM PT on ACC Network. Virginia Tech finished the regular season 30-24 overall and 12-18 in the ACC. Stanford and Virginia Tech did not play in the regular season, making it the first time they’ll have met this season.
The big thing to look for is how Stanford will approach things from a pitching standpoint. Matt Scott hasn’t pitched since the Wake Forest series at the end of April and Christian Lim has been confirmed to be out for the season. So, David Esquer and pitching coach Thomas Eager will likely need to get creative with how they approach the pitching staff. And then of course, the bats will need to stay on. Stanford’s offense better be prepared to generate some runs.
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