At 12:45 PM PT on Wednesday (today) on Pac-12 Networks, #4 Stanford baseball will begin their Pac-12 tournament play against Arizona State in Scottsdale, Arizona. Stanford comes in as the top seed in the Pac-12 tournament with a 21-9 Pac-12 record while Arizona State comes in as the #8 seed, the last team to get in at 13-17 in the Pac-12. Given this is a tournament setting, I’ll do something a bit differently and preview the tournament as a whole and what Stanford needs to do to come out on top.
Last time out: Stanford completed their weekend home sweep of USC on Sunday to win the Pac-12 championship.
RECAP: #4 Stanford takes care of business against USC to win Pac-12 title
Format: The format of the tournament is pretty simple: It’s double elimination, which means a team can lose one game and still win the tournament. Click here to check out the bracket/format on Pac-12.com
Keys to the tournament: For Stanford, the first thing they need to do is get a good pitching rotation figured out for the week. Ty Uber is taking the mound as the starter against Arizona State, which means Alex Williams is not going to be starting twice. It’s an interesting decision to not see if you can have Williams start on Wednesday and Sunday since he is the best starting pitcher on the team. Outside of him and newly appointed closer Quinn Mathews, nobody on this Stanford pitching staff has been super consistent. If Stanford wants to win the tournament, it's going to have to start with the pitching.
The second thing Stanford is going to need is for there to be a different hero every game for the offense. It’s something they talk about all the time, but it’s really true. It can’t just be Brock Jones, Braden Montgomery, and Carter Graham going wild for the entire time. Those guys are bound to have at least one game where their bats are cool and others will need step up. If those guys get the help they need and the “different hero every night” mentality pays off, Stanford will be fine. Their offense is just so explosive when it’s on.
Finally, Stanford needs to play a clean tournament. Don’t commit errors, make smart base-running decisions, etc. I’ve said this all before, but when Stanford plays a clean game, they’re almost impossible to beat. Especially right now. That’s why they are ranked #4 in the country.
Prediction: It’s tough to win a regular season Pac-12 title and a Pac-12 tournament in the same season. At least in basketball. This Pac-12 baseball tournament is new and so we have no history to draw from here. Maybe we’ll see more Pac-12 regular season champions win the title than in basketball. One thing that does help a team like Stanford is that this is double elimination. That takes some pressure off.
With all of that as a pretext to my prediction, I’m going to say Stanford wins the Pac-12 tournament. They’re coming in with so much momentum and with how good their offense is on top of the pitching of Williams and Mathews alone, they really deserve to be the favorites.
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