May 18, 2008
Tucson, Ariz. - No. 14 Stanford baseball resumed their three-game set with Arizona and came away with a hard fought 8-5 victory in 11 innings. Freshman Drew Storen (2-3, 2.91 ERA) came away with the victory by pitching a career-high five innings in relief. The Cardinal started senior Erik Davis to the mound and the righty responded with a strong six inning outing and only allowed four earned runs at the very hitter friendly Jerry Kindall Field. Junior Jason Castro came away with the big hit, a two-RBI double that broke the tie in the 11th inning and produced the game-winning runs.
Arizona closer Jason Stoffel (2-2, 3.76 ERA) took the loss for the Wildcats after allowing three runs in three innings of relief work. Wildcat junior Brad Glenn hit two home runs for the Wildcats in the loss and ended with four RBI's.
The Cardinal got on the board first again with two runs in the top of the first inning keyed by an RBI triple by sophomore Toby Gerhart. Phelps led off the inning with a single through the right side of the infield and came around on the triple by Gerhart. Gerhart laced a first pitch fastball into the cavernous outfield at Jerry Kindall Field and got in standing up to get the Cardinal on the board first. Gerhart was later pushed across by junior Jason Castro, who singled to right field. This gave Stanford the early 2-0 lead.
As was the case the previous meeting yesterday, the Cardinal first inning lead was very short lived. The Wildcats got a leadoff single by Diallo Fon and third baseman Brad Glenn brought him in with a two-run home run over the left field wall to tie the score at two apiece. The home run was Glenn's 12th of the season.
Both teams were kept off the board in the second and third innings, a rare occurrence as Tucson provides a very good hitting environment this time of year. Stanford reclaimed the lead in the fourth inning when Ratliff hit a towering solo home run way over the right field and into 6th street, which is located another 30 feet behind the wall. This gave the Cardinal a 3-2 edge early on. Junior Jeff Whitlow followed with a triple, but was unable to score as Coulon settled down and retired the next three batters and keep the Arizona deficit at one.
The Cardinal continued to hit the ball hard in the fifth inning as they scored two more runs and pushed their lead out to 5-2. Gerhart began the inning with a single for his second hit of the evening, and moved to second when Castro walked. This chased Coulon from the game and junior Mike Colla came on in relief after just four innings of work. After a Brent Milleville strikeout, Randy Molina came on and got all the way to second on a throwing error by Wildcat first baseman C.J. Ziegler. Ratliff continued his big night with a two-RBI single to right field to bring Gerhart and Molina around to score. Colla settled down afterwards with two more strikeouts to end up striking out the side in the fifth. The damage had been done though and Stanford led 5-2 after four and a half innings in Tucson.
Arizona responded in the fifth inning with Glenn's second home run of the night to cut the Stanford lead to just 5-4. The home run was almost an identical blast as the first one and was Glenn's 13th home run of the season. The Arizona rally continued in the sixth inning as DH Dillon Baird got a two-out double and came around to score on an RBI single by Wildcat catcher Daniel Butler tied the score at 5-5.
Davis was lifted for Storen who came away with a huge relief effort with five innings of work and allowed just two hits in the win. Gerhart, Castro and Ratliff each finished with two hits each.
The teams remained scoreless all the way until the 11th inning when Colin Walsh led the inning off with a walk. Walsh was lifted for pinch runner Wande Olabisi, who got to second base on a Schlander sacrifice. Castro came up with two outs after a Phelps walk and lined a double into the left field gap to bring around both runners and give the Cardinal a 7-5 lead. Milleville then got a single through the left field side to score Castro and the lead grew to 8-5.
The two teams will resume play in the final game of the three-game set tomorrow when the teams have a quick turnaround and play at 11:00 a.m. PST. Jeffrey Inman is scheduled to throw for Stanford and the Wildcats are set to throw Eric Berger.