Stanford welcomes Sac State to The Farm after Sunday win at Oregon State
On Tuesday at 6:05 PM PT on Stanford Live Stream and KZSU radio, Stanford baseball will welcome Sacramento State to The Farm. Stanford comes in at 14-19 overall while Sacramento State comes in at 18-20.
Probable pitchers: The probable starting pitching matchup is Stanford freshman righty Ryan Speshyock (0-1, 10.67 ERA, 13K) vs. Sacramento State senior righty Jasper Nelson (0-0, 12.10 ERA, 5K).
Last time out: Stanford is coming off a three-game series at No. 5 Oregon State. They dropped game one on Friday by a final score of 6-0 and also dropped game two on Saturday by a final score of 3-1. Stanford won game three on Sunday in a wild 11-10 victory.
In the 6-0 loss on Friday, Oregon State scored one run in the bottom of the 1st inning and two runs in the bottom of the 2nd inning to lead 3-0. They would then add three more runs in the bottom of the 7th to make it 6-0. Dallas Macias led the way for the Beavers with two RBIs while Aiden May (2-0) was the winning pitcher in a starting role, pitching 6.0 innings and only giving up three hits and striking out five batters.
Matt Scott (2-6) was the losing pitcher for the Cardinal in a starting role. Scott pitched 6.0 innings and had three earned runs. Ben Reimers who came in for relief had the other three earned runs in just 0.1 innings of work. Reimers’ ERA has skyrocketed to an 8.75 as a result. Toran O’Harran then came in to finish out the job on the mound, giving up no runs.
BOX SCORE: Stanford at Oregon State-Friday, April 12th
Moving on to Saturday’s 3-1 loss, Stanford actually struck first by scoring in the top of the 2nd inning as Jimmy Nati hit a solo home run to left center on an 0-1 count. Oregon State responded with two runs in the bottom of the 5th thanks to a two-RBI single from Wilson Weber before Macias it a solo homer in the bottom of the 7th inning to give the Beavers a bit more breathing room.
BOX SCORE: Stanford at Oregon State-Saturday, April 13th
Pitching-wise, Jacob Kmatz (5-1) was the winning pitcher for the Beavers in a starting role. He pitched 6.0 innings and only gave up the one run, though he did give up six hits. He struck out six batters and had a performance that was good enough. Bridger Holmes picked up the save for the Beavers, his eighth of the season. Christian Lim (3-3) was the losing pitcher for the Cardinal in a starting role. He pitched 4.2 innings and gave up two earned runs. He walked five batters and struck out four. Not his best stuff, but not a bad performance. This is a game where the hitting really let the Cardinal down.
Ending with Sunday’s 11-10 victory for Stanford, it was tied 10-10 at the end of the 8th inning and Charlie Saum hit the game-winning homer in the top of the 9th to break the tie. Jimmy Nati and Brandon Larson each had three RBIs for the Cardinal while Gavin Turley had six RBIs for the Beavers.
BOX SCORE: Stanford at Oregon State-Sunday, April 14th
Stanford scored three runs in the top of the 3rd inning to lead 3-0 before Oregon State scored four runs in the bottom of the inning to lead 4-3. Stanford scored three runs in the top of the 5th to lead 6-4 and then Oregon State answered with one run in the bottom of the 6th and two runs in the bottom of the 7th to lead 7-6. Stanford then scored four runs in the top of the 8th to lead 10-7 before Oregon State answered with three runs in the bottom of the 8th to tie it up 10-10. And then, as mentioned above, Saum hit the game-winning solo shot.
As for the pitching, Ben Reimers (3-1) was the winning pitcher for the Cardinal in a relief role, pitching just 1.0 innings. Joey Volchko also picked up his first career save pitching 0.1 innings. Laif Palmer (1-1) was the losing pitcher for Oregon State in a relief role, pitching just 0.2 innings and giving up one earned run, which was the homer to Saum.
Overall, Stanford should feel good to have battled Oregon State like they did. Especially since this is a rebuilding season. They dug deep to avoid the sweep and then hey, Saturday was a battle as they had Oregon State in a save situation all the way until the very end of the game. This could have been a total blow out and they could have gotten swept. In that sense, they should feel good about how the weekend went.
On Sacramento State: The Hornets are playing close to .500 ball with their 18-20 overall record. They are 9-9 in the Big Sky and holding their own in league play. On Tuesday April 18th last year, almost exactly a year ago from today, they defeated Stanford 15-13 on The Farm in a shoot out. They know they can win a Tuesday game at Stanford as they did so last year.
Just touching on their lineup, senior infielder Gunner Gouldsmith is batting .311 for two home runs and 20 RBIs to go along with a .391 slugging percentage and a .369 on base percentage. Sophomore infielder JP Smith is the top power hitter on the team with 15 home runs and 34 RBIs. Smith has a .270 batting average, a .601 slugging percentage, and a .347 on base percentage.
Prediction: I’ll skip keys to the game for tonight, but in short, I’m gonna pick Stanford to win 9-7. I could see this one going both ways, but I’ll pick Stanford to find a way to get enough runs to pull through. If there is one key to the game I could pass on for Stanford it would be for the bullpen to hold. Those guys have to step up. The cannot win if they run out of arms. Speshyock needs to set the tone on the mound tonight.
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