April 5, 2012
SEATTLE-- Mark Appel (4-1) retired 15 in a row and pitched a four-hitter as No. 6-ranked Stanford (18-6, 3-4 Pac-10) opened up its series at Washington (16-10, 3-4 Pac-12) with a 5-2 win on Thursday evening.
Lonnie Kauppila and Eric Smith added three hits a piece as Stanford erased a 2-0 lead early with a four-run fifth inning.
Appel settled down after a shaky start to throw his third complete game of the season. He walked two in the first, gave up a single in the second and did not allow another two hits until the eighth. He struck out three.
The Huskies thought they had finally solved the righthander after Mac Acker's pinch-hit single and Jayce Ray's one-out single started the eighth. But left fielder Tyler Gaffney threw out Acker trying to advance from first to third, snuffing out a potential Washington rally, with Stanford up 4-2. Appel then got a groundout to send it to the ninth.
Appel had retired 15 in a row until Acker's leadoff single, as the preseason All-American pitched to just two over the minimum after Washington took a 2-0 lead in the first. He closed out his ninth with two flyouts and a groundout.
Stanford pushed across four runs in the fifth to lead 4-2. Kauppila's RBI single started the rally, before a wild pitched tied it at 2-2. Brian Ragira's two-out single to center plated two and made it 4-2.
Starter Aaron West was chased in the sixth after giving up the Cardinal's first eight hits over his last two-plus innings. The Husky righthander gave up four runs on eight hits over 5.1 innings.
Back-to-back walks came back to haunt Appel, as Jacob Lamb delivered a two-run, two-out double off the wall to make it 2-0 for Washington in the first.
NOTES: First baseman Brian Ragira dove to his right and stopped a base hit in the sixth, tossing it to Appel for the second out of the inning... Friday's game is at 5 p.m. and Saturday's contest is at 1 p.m... Stanford returns to the Bay after Easter to play at Cal on Monday and host Pacific next Tuesday.