March 9, 2001
Stanford, Calif. - Stanford sophomore right-hander Jeremy Guthrie tossed his first career shutout to lift #10 Stanford (16-5) to a 2-0 victory over #4 USC (12-6) in a non-conference NCAA collegiate baseball game at Sunken Diamond. Guthrie (5-0) picked up his fifth consecutive win, scattering six hits and striking out eight Trojans. He is now 5-0 with an 0.94 ERA in 48.0 innings of work this season. Stanford's regular starting rotation of Guthrie, Jeff Bruksch and Tim Cunningham is now 12-0 with a combined 1.98 ERA this year. The entire staff lowered its team ERA of 2.78 as Stanford won for the 14th time in its last 16 games and improved to 8-1 at Sunken Diamond this season.
"I was just focusing on holding them scoreless until we scored," said Guthrie. "If that's what it took, that was my mindset. I knew (Mark) Prior was pitching well and giving up three runs was probably not going to do the job for us tonight."
"There's nobody better than the two guys who threw tonight (Guthrie and USC's Mark Prior)," added Stanford head coach Mark Marquess. "I can't imagine any college baseball pitchers throwing better than these two guys did this evening."
Guthrie and Prior were locked in a scoreless battle through the first five innings before the Cardinal finally broke through with a run in the bottom of the sixth.
Chris O'Riordan, who hit a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 10th inning to beat California on Wednesday, came through once again with a pair of clutch hits for the Cardinal. O'Riordan snapped the scoreless tie with an RBI single in the bottom of the sixth and then drove home Sam Fuld with another RBI single in the eighth inning. Fuld had reached second base with one out after hitting a line drive into leftcenter field and stretching it into a double.
"I guess I bear down in clutch situations, but I think I need to change my approach a little bit and bear down on every at bat" laughed Riordan, who had entered the game mired in a 4-for-24 slump but still leads the Cardinal with a .360 batting average after tonight's contest.
O'Riordan (2-4, 2 RBI) and Andy Topham (2-3) had multiple-hit games for the Cardinal, while USC leadoff hitter Brian Barre (2-4) was the only Trojan with more than one hit.
Guthrie's shutout was in jeopardy on several occasions early in the game as USC left 10 runners on base, including five in scoring position over the first four innings. Guthrie struck out the final batter of the inning in each of the first three frames with a runner in scoring position. He had just one perfect inning the entire evening, a 1-2-3 fifth frame, but did not allow another runner into scoring position after the fourth.
Stanford did not have a runner reach second base in any inning except the sixth and the eighth.
Prior (4-1), who scattered eight hits and two runs, suffered his first loss of the season despite tying a career-high with 13 strikeouts.
Stanford and USC will continue their three-game non-conference series at Sunken Diamond this Saturday and Sunday with starts scheduled both days for 1:00 p.m. Following the USC series, the Cardinal will break for 11 days before opening the Pac-10 schedule with a three-game series versus Washington at Sunken Diamond (Friday-Sunday, March 23-25, 6 pm, 1 pm, 1 pm).