May 5, 2008
STANFORD, Calif. - The No. 6 Stanford baseball team evened itself out after losing three straight games last week, winning its third consecutive decision Monday night, 7-2, over the University of Pacific Tigers. Sean Ratliff hit his team-leading 14th home run of the season, a three-run job, to lead the Cardinal (28-15-2) over the Tigers (9-35).
Stanford will travel to San Francisco Tuesday afternoon to battle the Dons in a 3 p.m. contest at Benedetti Diamond.
Brent Milleville had a pair of hits and drove in a pair of runs Monday night to supplement Ratliff's homer, and Joey August went 3-for-5 from the plate for the Cardinal.
Jeffrey Inman ran his record on the year to 6-2 after allowing only two runs on five hits and striking out five Pacific batters in five innings of work. (Relief pitchers)
Pacific took an early 1-0 lead in the second, taking advantage of a two-out walk to Kurt Wideman as Noah St. Urbain doubled to right-center to drive him in from first.
Stanford would answer with three runs of their own in its half of the third to take a 3-1 lead it would not relinquish the rest of the way. Jake Schlander opened things up with a base hit through the left side, and two batters later, August's double put runners on second and third for Jason Castro. But the Tigers elected to intentionally walk the Cardinal slugger to get to Milleville, who made them pay as he lashed a single to left that plated two. Castro and Milleville would advance a bag on the play as Tigers left-fielder Brett Manning misplayed the ball, and Stanford would capitalize as Randy Molina's groundout to the right side allowed Castro to cross with Stanford's third run off of starter Larry Holscher.
Holscher took his fourth loss of the season, giving up three runs, two earned, off of six hits over three and two-thirds innings.
The Tigers cut the deficit to one in the fifth, as Wideman again started a small rally with a double to right-center. A groundout to second advanced Wideman to third, and he scored Pacific's second run of the game thanks to Mike McKeever's single to right.
But that was as close as things would get, as Stanford made a sizable cushion for itself in the bottom half of the fifth. With one away, Milleville singled and Molina drew a walk to set things up for Ratliff's 14th bomb of the season, a long, high fly into the trees just past the right-field fence. The Cardinal would tack a on a fourth run against Tigers reliever David Rowse, as Brendan Domaracki tripled to right-center and came home on Zach Jones' single to center.
Pacific managed to get a pair of singles in the sixth, putting two on with just one away against Cardinal reliever Dan Sandbrink, but Sandbrink got Nick Longmire to foul out then got Brian Martin swinging to end the threat.
Drew Storen finished off the game's final two innings for Stanford, allowing just one hit and striking out a batter.