April 25, 2007
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Stanford, Calif. - Stanford (17-21) arguably played one of its most complete games of the season in a 7-2 non-conference victory over Fresno State (26-21) at Sunken Diamond on a pleasant Wednesday afternoon. The victory in the makeup game of a contest originally scheduled as part of a three-game series February 9-11 gave the Cardinal a season sweep over the Bulldogs and ran Stanford's home win streak over Fresno State to nine in a row dating back to 1999 with its third consecutive regular season home sweep against the Bulldogs.
"We pitched well and played really good defense today," said Stanford head coach Mark Marquess. "Offensively, we had the one big inning that really helped, but we swung the bats well all today and throughout the lineup."
Six Stanford players - Michael Taylor (3-4, RBI), Cord Phelps (2-3, 3 RBI), Brendan Domaracki (2-3), Brent Milleville (2-3), Joey August (2-4, RBI) and Sean Ratliff (2-5, 2B, HR, RBI) - combined for 13 of the 14 Cardinal hits while also driving in six of the team's seven runs.
Stanford also received strong outings from each of its three pitchers. Starter Erik Davis (2-0) earned the victory due to a predetermined pitching rotation, allowing just one run on one hit and two walks with three strikeouts over the first 4.0 innings in an outing that equaled his longest of the season. Cory Bannister (2.2 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 1 ER) held the Bulldogs in check during the middle of the game, before Blake Hancock (2.1 IP, 2 H, 1 SO) got the Cardinal out of a big spot in the seventh inning and then finished the contest for his first collegiate save.
"I just came in and focused on throwing the ball down and letting them get themselves out," said Hancock. "I expected to be in the game in the eighth, but I didn't really know about the ninth. I was hoping they were going to let me go out there, and I was pretty excited when I was told I would be going back out there for the ninth."
"Blake Hancock's been pitching well," added Marquess. "He did a great job today and responded to what we needed him to do."
Stanford's pitching performances were supported by a defensive that went errorless for the fifth time in the last nine games.
Loren Storey (2-3), Tommy Mendonca (2-3) and Alan Ahmady (2-4) had two hits each for Fresno State.
Brandon Burke (4-5) suffered the loss as the second of six Bulldog pitchers, allowing five runs on nine hits and a walk with two strikeouts in 3.0 innings of work.
Fresno State's biggest highlight came in the top of the first inning when Erik Wetzel led off the game with a triple just out of Taylor's reach down the right field line and scored on Brian Lapin's sacrifice fly two batters later.
Stanford scored twice in the second to take a 2-1 lead and would never trail again. Domaracki greeted Burke, who had replaced starter Clayton Allison (1.0 IP, 1 BB) after his scoreless first, with a single before Adam Sorgi doubled to put runners on second and third no outs. Phelps then blooped a ball into shallow leftcenter field that turned into a sacrifice fly. Bulldog shortstop Todd Sandell was able to run Phelps' ball down but a heads up Domaracki sprinted home from third as Sandell's momentum took him towards the outfield and didn't allow him to recover in time to throw Domaracki out at the plate. Milleville moved Sorgi to third with a single before Castro brought him in with a conventional sacrifice fly to Storey in right field.
After giving up Wetzel's leadoff triple in the first and walking Storey, Davis would allow only one more baserunner the rest of the way when he walked Sandell with one out in the third before Cardinal catcher Jason Castro picked him off as Davis ended up facing just one batter over the minimum during his stint.
Bannister relieved Davis to start the fifth and threw a scoreless inning before Stanford established control of the game with a four-run bottom of the fifth. Back-to-back leadoff doubles from Ratliff and August were responsible for the first Cardinal run before an RBI single from Taylor ended Burke's outing. Justin Wilson (1.2 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 2 SO) made a nice play to get Taylor as the lead runner on a sacrifice bunt attempt by Domaracki but walked Sorgi and gave up a key two-RBI single to Phelps that capped the rally.
"For the most part our hitters were pretty relaxed today," said Phelps. "We were seeing the ball well and ready to hit."
Fresno State got a run off Bannister in the seventh on a two-out RBI double by Sandell after Mendonca and Ahmady had singled earlier in the frame but Hancock came on with runners on second and third and got Wetzel to fly out to August in left to get the Cardinal out of the jam.
Stanford picked up its final run on Ratliff's long two-out homer well over the right field wall in the bottom of the eighth.
Stanford starts the second half of Pac-10 action against defending College World Series champion and No. 8 Oregon State (32-8, 4-5 Pac-10) in a three-game series at Sunken Diamond this Friday-Sunday, April 27-29 (7 pm, 1 pm, 12:30 pm, PT). The first two games of the Oregon State series will be televised live by CSTV and Fox Sports Net, respectively.
"We're focused more on how we're playing," commented Marquess about the upcoming series versus Oregon State. "We respect them, and we know they're very talented, but for us it's more important that we play well, pitch well and play good defense. When we do that, we can compete with anybody. But, when we haven't done those things we haven't done well, and have gotten beat by almost anybody, too. Hopefully, we can be a little more consistent and put our game together like we did today."
Tickets for the Oregon State 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.