May 6, 2008
San Francisco, Calif. - Stanford baseball played their fourth game in as many days Tuesday afternoon at Benedetti Field in San Francisco, Calif. and dropped a 13-9 decision after allowing seven fourth inning runs. Junior Sean Ratliff hit his 14th home run of the season in the second inning, which was his fourth in the last three games.
Senior David Stringer (2-1, 5.58 ERA) took the loss after coming in the second inning for an ineffective Alex Pracher, who was making his second start of the season. Garrett Luippold (4-1, 5.61 ERA) earned the victory for the Dons after coming into the game for starter Sean Burns in the second inning.
The Dons jumped on the scoreboard early after senior Joey Railey led off the game with a double and moved to third on a passed by junior Jason Castro. Connor Bernatz drew a walk and after a wild pitch by Pracher, Railey scored for the first San Francisco run of the game. Bernatz also went to second on the wild pitch and went to third when Kyle Morgan flied out to right field. Dons first baseman Mitchell Bialowsky followed up with a sacrifice fly and extended the lead to 2-0.
The lead was short lived though when juniors Brent Milleville and Randy Molina drew walks and set the table for Ratliff, who hit his team leading 14th home run and pushed his RBI total up to 48. Stanford held a 3-2 lead after their at bat in the second inning, but after a Matt Lieb RBI single, the two teams were tied at three apiece through two innings.
The Cardinal undoing this game came in the fourth inning when they allowed seven runs to the Dons and a 3-3 tie turned into a 10-3 deficit. The Dons pounded out seven hits in the frame, with the big hit being a Bialowsky three-run homer, his team-leading sixth of the season. Kyle Morgan also had a 2-RBI single in the frame, which was the other big blow to the Cardinal in the inning.
As they have done all season long, the Cardinal continued to fight back and made the game close once again. Stanford put up three runs in the fifth and three more in the eighth, but still had continuing trouble with the Dons offense, which enabled USF to record 16 hits in the game.
The fifth inning was a strange inning for Stanford, which saw them score two runs on balks by Luippold and only put up three runs on just one hit. In the eighth inning, the three runs were scored on a home run by Brendan Domaracki, who hit a towering shot to right field. It was Domaracki's first home run of the season, and would have landed in the city streets if not for the new 70 foot netting that was built at Benedetti Stadium this past fall.
This was the seventh game in a row that Stanford has scored at least seven runs and has pushed their team batting average all the way to .302.
The Cardinal will return to the field on Friday when they begin a three-game series at Klein Field with bay area rival California. The Friday game will begin at 6:00 p.m. and the Saturday and Sunday games will start at 1:00 p.m. Sunday's game will also be broadcast on CBS College Sports.