April 10, 2007
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Reno, Nev. - Stanford (14-15) snapped a six-game losing skid with a 9-4 win over Nevada (20-18) in a non-conference game at Peccole Park on Tuesday. Brent Milleville (4-4, 2 2B, 5 RBI) had career-highs in hits and RBI to lead the Cardinal offense, while Joey August (3-3, RBI) and Adam Sorgi (2-4) also had multiple-hit days with Sorgi extending his hit streak to a new career-high 12 games and also scoring three runs. Sean Ratliff stroked his team co-leading fifth homer of the season with a solo shot in the fifth and also drove in another run with an eighth inning sacrifice fly.
"We did a lot of things well today, and it was nice to get a victory," stated Stanford head coach Mark Marquess. "Hopefully, this can give us some momentum and confidence going into the big series we have coming up against Arizona."
"As a team, our offense hasn't been great, and we have a lot of guys that have been trying to find out what will work for them," said Milleville. "There were a lot of guys that hit the ball well today. I think this was our best offensive game of the year, because we scored throughout the game. That's something we haven't been able to do yet this year."
David Stringer earned his seventh save of the season by holding the Wolf Pack scoreless on just two hits and a walk with four strikeouts over a season-long 5.0 inning relief outing. Stringer retired 14 of the final 16 hitters he faced, including the final seven in a row.
"I was actually having a little trouble with the breaking stuff [in the bullpen] maybe because of the elevation, but when I got in the game that went away," said Stringer. "I was attacking down in the zone pretty well. I hope that maybe I did a pretty good job of setting the tone for the second half of our season."
David Stringer picked up his seventh save of the season with 5.0 scoreless innings of relief in a 9-4 win at Nevada on Tuesday |
Reliever Tom Stilson (0.2 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB) picked up the victory to improve his record to 2-1. Stilson allowed a runner to score in the fourth inning after relieving starter Austin Yount (3.1 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 2 SO) but got out of the jam without further damage when he retired cleanup hitter Baker Krukow on a groundout to Cardinal shortstop Adam Gaylord for the final out, leaving Wolf Pack runners stranded on second and third.
Terry Walsh (2-2, 2B) and Shaun Kort (2-4, HR, RBI) combined for half of Nevada's eight hits.
Jacob Kaup (0.0 IP, 1 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB), the third of seven Nevada pitchers, did not retire any of the three batters he faced in the Cardinal fifth and took his first loss of the season to fall to 2-1.
Nevada made the first dent on the scoreboard with a pair of runs in the bottom of the first inning. Mike Hale led off the inning with a triple off the center field fence before scoring on a wild pitch by Yount. Kort restarted the rally with a one-out single and moved to third on a single by Krukow. Kaup walked to load the bases and the Wolf Pack picked up its second run of the frame two batters later when Chris Siewert beat out an RBI infield single that he dribbled just past Yount on the first base side of the mound.
Stanford got one of the runs back in the top of the second. August led off the inning with a single and scored an unearned run when Toby Gerhart's two-out groundball was booted by Siewert at shortstop three batters later. August had reached second on the first of Milleville's four hits and third when Jason Castro hit into a double play.
Stanford took its first lead of the game at 3-2 with a pair of third inning runs on back-to-back two-out RBI singles from August and Milleville. Gaylord had started the rally with a leadoff single and moved to third two batters later when Sorgi singled. Nevada starter Ben Colton (2.2 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 2 SO) struck out Michael Taylor for the second out but then was removed in favor of Jarad Mitchell (1.1 IP, 2 H, 1 BB, 2 SO), who allowed the back-to-back RBI singles to August and Milleville.
Nevada would retake a 4-3 lead with single runs in the third and fourth frames. Kort led off the third with a solo shot to leftcenter. In the fourth, Stilson gave up a one-out double to Nick Sansone, before wild pitching him to third and allowing him to score on Jason Rodriguez' RBI groundout.
Stanford would get the lead back with two runs in the fifth and never trail again. Ratliff tied the game at 4-4 with a long solo homer off Kaup over the right field fence to lead off the fifth. Kaup then walked Sorgi and went to a 2-0 count on Taylor before being relieved by Matt Renfree (2.0 IP, 1 BB, 1 SO), who threw the final two balls to Taylor for a walk that was credited to Kaup. August moved the runners to second and third with a sacrifice bunt before a sacrifice fly by Milleville brought home Sorgi with what proved to be the eventual game-winning run.
Milleville brought in two more runs with a two-RBI double off Mat Keplinger (0.1 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB) in the seventh after Sorgi and Jeff Whitlow had back-to-back one-out singles and August walked to load the bases.
Stanford closed out the game's scoring with single runs in the eighth and the ninth. Cord Phelps doubled to start the eighth, before moving to third on a Gaylord sacrifice bunt and scoring on Ratliff's sacrifice fly. In the ninth, August had a one-out infield single and scored on Milleville's second consecutive double.
Stanford returns home to Sunken Diamond to host league leader Arizona (28-6, 6-0 Pac-10) in a three-game Pac-10 series this Friday-Sunday, April 13-15 (6 pm, 1 pm, 1 pm, PT). Saturday's game will serve as Community Day.
Tickets for the upcoming Arizona series and all regular season Stanford Baseball home contests are available online at gostanford.com or by calling 1-800-STANFORD. On game days, tickets may be purchased at the Sunken Diamond Ticket Office window beginning one hour before first pitch. For group ticket information (groups of 10 or more), call 650-725-2876.