April 19, 2008
Stanford, Calif. - Erik Davis tossed his fourth consecutive complete game and No. 10 Stanford (21-11-2, 8-3 Pac-10) extended its season-high win streak to six straight with a 6-1 victory over UCLA (18-16, 3-5 Pac-10) at Jackie Robinson Stadium on Saturday. Davis (6-1) also earned his fifth victory in as many outings, striking out a career-high 13 batters that is the most by a Stanford pitcher since 2004. Stanford clinched its 11th straight regular season three-game series with the victory and moved 1.5 games ahead of second place Arizona State in the Pac-10 standings prior to the Sun Devils' game against Oregon State on Saturday evening in Tempe.
Davis lost a bid for his first career shutout when he wild pitched home a run in the eighth but avoided a potentially bigger inning by striking out the side after the Bruins had loaded the bases with no outs on three consecutive singles by Brent Dean, Alden Carrithers and Jermaine Curtis to start the inning.
Davis would strike out the side in order in the ninth to finish the game with six consecutive strikeouts.
"It's just me taking one inning at a time," commented Davis about his performance. "The way I judge my performance is not based on the outcome but rather if I gave my team a chance to win. Other than my first outing this year, I think I've given my team a chance to win every time since. I'm really happy with that, and hopefully I can keep it up."
Stanford scored all six of its runs after two were out in a fifth inning that equaled the team's season-high for production in a single frame.bUCLA starter and losing pitcher Charles Brewer (4.2 IP, 6 H, 6 R, 6 ER, 4 BB, 2 SO) got two of the first three batters in the inning out but a Zach Jones single in between outs by Brent Milleville and Jake Schlander was enough to get the Cardinal to the top of the lineup. With Jones having moved up to second on a Schlander groundout, Brewer intentionally walked Cord Phelps to get to Brendan Domaracki, who made UCLA pay with a ground rule double to bring home Jones. Joey August drew a walk to load the bases before Jason Castro came through with a clutch two-run single to put Stanford ahead 3-0 and Randy Molina dropped a bomb to double the lead.
"That inning was just like some of the other ones we've had this year," said Molina. "We have a lot of guys in the lineup that are clutch in big situations. We kind of feed off the hitter in front of us and feel a personal responsibility to come through for the team. That feeling has helped us all year."
Castro (3-5, 2 RBI), Molina (2-5, HR, 3 RBI) and Jones (2-3) had multiple-hit games for a Stanford team that outhit UCLA, 11-7.
Carrithers (2-3) was the only UCLA player with more than one of UCLA's seven hits, all singles, as Davis was the story of the game.
In the first inning, Carrithers' reached on an infield single and Curtis on an error by Jones to put UCLA runners on first and second with no outs before Davis struck out the heart of the Bruins' order to leave them stranded. The Bruins got their first two runners on in the fourth after Casey Haerther and Tim Murphy started the inning with back-to-back singles but Davis forced Cody Decker into a double play and got Mickey Weisser on a comebacker to escape unscathed.
Davis would not allow another hit until the three consecutive singles to start the eighth, retiring 11 of 12 hitters starting with Decker's double play.
"Erik Davis was simply fantastic once again today," said Stanford head coach Mark Marquess. "It is an amazing accomplishment to have pitched four consecutive complete games. It's almost unheard of in today's age of college baseball."
Stanford and UCLA conclude the three-game set Sunday (1 pm, PT) with Stanford looking for its second sweep of the season and its first since taking three in a row February 29 - March 2 from Cal State Fullerton. Sunday's scheduled pitching matchup features Stanford RHP Jeffrey Inman (5-0, 1.49) against UCLA LHP Gavin Brooks (3-2, 4.97).