Feb. 29, 2004
Updated Season Stats
Stanford Baseball Tickets
Berkeley, Calif. - No. 1 Stanford (13-2) won its 13th straight game against California (7-9) by completing a three-game non-conference sweep of the Golden Bears with a 6-2 victory in front of a crowd of 1087 on a chilly Sunday afternoon. The victory also marked the seventh consecutive win for the Cardinal at California's Evans Diamond with the last Golden Bear victory coming in Berkeley on March 9, 2002. Blake Holler (2-0) worked a career-high 7.0 innings in his second career start to earn the victory, allowing just one run and five hits with four strikeouts. John Mayberry, Jr. (3-5, 2B, 3 RBI) led Stanford's 13-hit attack, while Donny Lucy (2-4, HR, RBI) hit his second homer of the series. Stanford also had 2-for-4 games from Jonny Ash, Jed Lowrie, Danny Putnam and Chris Minaker as 11 of the team's 13 hits were singles. Jonny Dyer got the final two outs to help thwart a potential Golden Bear rally in the bottom of the ninth to earn his first collegiate save.
"We pitched well and played good defense today," said Stanford head coach Mark Marquess. "Then, we got a couple of big hits with two outs that really helped us out. We played solid."
"I was able to throw strikes and keep the ball down, and it worked," added Holler, who had nine groundouts.
Stanford has now swept three of its five series this season and five during its current nine-series win streak dating back to last year. The Cardinal has also won 19 of its last 20 road games overall with a 5-1 mark away from home this season.
California starter Kyle Crist (1-3) suffered the loss by allowing four runs (three earned) and nine hits over 4.0 innings. Golden Bear relievers Matt Brown (3.0 IP, 2 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 4 SO) and Jesse Ingram (2.0 IP, 2 H, 1 SO) were able to keep California in the game by holding Stanford to a pair of runs in its final five trips to the plate.
David Weiner hit a two-out first inning solo homer for the Golden Bears, while Chris Errecart (2-4) was the only California player with more than one hit.
Lowrie (11) and Ash (10) both extended their hit streaks in the contest. Lowrie finished the three-game series with a .700 batting average (7-10) to raise his season mark to .472. He also had a double, three triples, seven RBI, three walks, one hit by pitch, two sacrifice flies, a stolen base and a 1.400 slugging percentage in the three games, while fielding all 16 of his chances without an error. Ash hit .500 in the series (7-14) and now stands at .375 for the season, in addition to a lifetime mark of .477 (21-44) versus the Golden Bears.
Stanford jumped out to an early 2-0 lead with a pair of runs in the first inning and never trailed in the contest. Ash, Putnam and Mayberry put together three consecutive one-out singles. Ash scored on Mayberry's hit and Putnam also came around to score on the play when California second baseman David Nicholson threw the ball away trying to retire Mayberry at first base from the grass in shallow right field.
Weiner's home run in the bottom of the first cut the Cardinal lead to 2-1.
Stanford got the run back in the top of the second when Lucy and Minaker led off with back-to-back singles to put Cardinal runners on first and third with no outs before Lucy scored when Sam Fuld grounded into a double play.
The Cardinal would score a single run in the fourth, fifth and seventh frames, each time after two were out.
Lucy hit his second homer of the series in the top of the fourth, a two-out solo shot off the climbing wall beyond the left field fence to extend Stanford's lead to 4-1.
Stanford added another run in the fifth when Ash drew a walk from Brown to lead off the inning, moved to second on a ground ball by Putnam and scored on a clutch two-out RBI single by Mayberry.
Mayberry came through with another key two-out hit in the seventh when he doubled home Lowrie, who had walked with two outs and nobody on to get the rally started.
"It felt really good (to come through in those situations), especially since I wasn't really able to get the job done during the first two days of the series," said Mayberry, who was just a combined 1-for-8 Friday and Saturday. "Today, I just focused on the job at hand."
California scored a run in the ninth to make the final score 6-2. Errecart started the rally with a one-out single before David Horwitz was hit by a pitch and Brennan Boesch walked to load the bases to bring on Dyer in relief of Matt Manship. Dyer nearly got out of the inning without any damage when he induced Garrett Bussiere into a ground ball to Ash at third base but Minaker's throw from second on the back end of a double play attempt pulled Mayberry off the bag at first base to allow Errecart to score and keep the inning alive, but Dyer struck out pinch-hitter Justin Nelson to end the game with the potential tying run waiting on deck.
Stanford did not make an error in the series, recording its ninth errorless game of the season and improving its season fielding percentage to .978, which is better than the school record of .977 set by the 2001 club. California committed just one error in Sunday's finale but six in the series as the Golden Bears dropped their fifth straight game after opening the campaign with a 7-4 mark.
Stanford left eight runners on base, while the Golden Bears stranded six. The Cardinal turned a pair of double plays, while the Golden Bears had one.
Stanford has now had 10 or more hits in 11 of its 14 games and has won by three or more runs on 12 occasions.
Stanford is scheduled to play 12 of its next 15 games on the road with its next action coming in a three-game non-conference series at USC next Friday-Sunday, March 5-7 (6 pm, 1 pm, 1 pm, PT). USC is one of the few teams with an advantage in the all-time series over the Cardinal, 198-150-3. However, Stanford has had the upper hand in recent years, including a current five-game win streak. The Cardinal has also won four consecutive season series versus the Trojans (2000-03) since the teams split six games in 1999. In fact, USC has not won a season series against the Cardinal since the Trojans swept all six games between the clubs in 1996.
After the USC series, the Cardinal will take a 15-day break for finals before returning with a non-conference game at Saint Mary's on Tuesday, March 23 (2 pm). Stanford does not return home to Sunken Diamond until hosting Cal Poly for a three-game set from March 26-28 (6 pm, 1 pm, 1 pm, PT). Tickets are available for all 2004 regular season Stanford Baseball home games online at gostanford.com or by calling 1-800-STANFORD.