March 31, 2008
Stanford, Calif. - No. 13 Stanford (13-7) celebrated a four-spot move in the latest Baseball America poll with a 9-3 victory over No. 10 Long Beach State (17-8) in a non-conference game at Klein Field at Sunken Diamond on Monday. Sean Ratliff (2-4, HR, 3 RBI) provided the big blow on offense with a three-run homer in the bottom of the fourth inning to break open a scoreless game and also extended his season-high hit streak to 10 games.
Five Stanford pitchers limited the 49ers to three runs despite allowing the visitors to outhit the Cardinal, 13-12. Long Beach State left 11 runners on base.
"The big hit today was obviously Ratliff's homer, and then we really swung the bat well from that point on," said Stanford head coach Mark Marquess, who won his 1298th career game to move within two victories of 1300 for his career and the No. 10 spot on the all-time win list for NCAA Division I coaches.
"It's good for us to a win a game like this against a team the caliber of Long Beach State," added Ratliff. "They are in the Top 10 in the country right now."
Cord Phelps (2-3, 2B, RBI) continued his torrid hitting to extend his hit streak to a new season-high seven games and was one of four Stanford players along with Ratliff, Randy Molina (2-4, RBI) and Jason Castro (2-5, 2B, RBI) to pick up two hits each.
Austin Yount (1.1 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER) was in the ballgame as the pitcher when the Cardinal scored four times in the fourth and was credited with the victory. David Stringer (2.1 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 4 SO), Tom Stilson (1.0 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 SO) and Alex Pracher (1.1 IP, 2 H, 3 SO) also followed Yount in relief of starter Max Fearnow (3.0 IP, 1 H, 2 BB, 1 SO).
Stanford's four-run fourth began when Long Beach State shortstop Danny Espinosa dropped a hard line drive hit by Castro for an error. Molina followed with a single down the left field line and moved to second on a throwing error by 49er leftfielder TJ Mittelstaedt trying to throw Castro out at third base. Ratliff then connected on his long homer over the fence just to the right of the centerfield batters' eye. Long Beach State starter and losing pitcher Brett Lorin (3.0 IP, 3 H, 4 R, 3 ER, 3 BB) followed by walking Yount before he was removed in favor of Adam Wilk (1.1 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 2 SO), who was the first of six Long Beach State relievers. Wilk struck out Zach Jones for the first out of the inning before back-to-back singles from Toby Gerhart and Jake Schlander netted the Cardinal a fourth run in the inning. Wilk then walked Phelps to load the bases before Brendan Domaracki hit into an inning-ending 4-6-3 double play.
Long Beach State got run back off Yount in the fifth when Devin Lohman led off with a single, moved to second base two batters later on a Travis Howell single and scored when Jonathan Jones doubled him home to end Yount's outing. Stringer came on with runners on second and third base, a run already in and only one out but struck out pinch-hitter Ted Lemasters and Espinosa to get out of the inning without any further damage.
Stanford came back with two runs in its half of the fifth to increase its margin to 6-1. Castro opened the inning with a double and moved to third two batters' later when Ratliff lined a laser off the glove of Long Beach State first baseman Shane Peterson to end Wilk's outing. David Brown (0.2 IP, 1 H) came in and was greeted by Yount with an RBI single before Jones just beat out a potential inning-ending double play ball for an RBI fielders' choice to score Ratliff.
Long Beach State pulled back to within 6-2 when Jason Corder launched a long solo homer with one out in the sixth but Stanford kept the momentum in its favor and pulled away with three runs in the bottom of the sixth. Gerhart started the mess when he was hit by a pitch and then scored two batters' later on an RBI double from Phelps. Brendan Domaracki became the second Cardinal hitter to be plucked by Dustin Rasco (0.1 IP, 1 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 1 SO) inning before Rasco was replaced by Jason Markovitz (0.2 IP, 2 H), who allowed back-to-back RBI singles to Castro and Molina before Ratliff hit a line drive to Corder in right field that turned into a double play when Castro was caught leaving early from third base while trying to tag and score.
Pinch-hitter Rylan Sandoval accounted for the final run of the game when he blasted a solo homer with one out in the eighth off Stilson.
Jones (2-3, 2B, RBI), Lohman (2-3), Corder (2-5, HR, RBI) and Peterson (2-5) had two hits each for Long Beach State.
Stanford will host Hawaii in a non-conference game at Klein Field at Sunken Diamond on Tuesday (6 pm, PT) before top-ranked Arizona State visits for a three-game series this Friday-Sunday (6 pm, 1 pm, 1 pm, PT) to end an eight-game Stanford homestand.