STANFORD, Calif. – It was another close contest with a Top 25 team, but Stanford baseball fell in the rubber match of a three-game series with No. 2 Vanderbilt, 5-2, on Sunday afternoon at Sunken Diamond.
Cardinal pitching held the nation's top scoring offense in check throughout most of the series, but the Commodores picked up a pair of runs in the second and added three more in the fifth to take a 5-0 lead midway through the contest.
Stanford pushed back in the home half of the fifth when freshman Brandon Wulff laced a single into left. Sophomore Jesse Kuet pinch ran and scored all the way from first on Jack Klein's double down the right field line. The next batter, Bryce Carter, also went the opposite way and placed a double into the left field corner to get within 5-2.
Junior Chris Castellanos made his first relief appearance of the season and was superb in shutting down Vandy for the rest of the afternoon. He threw 4 1/3 scoreless innings and allowed just three hits to keep the Cardinal close.
Stanford got the tying run to the plate in the sixth and had runners on in the eighth and ninth, but couldn't dent the scoreboard.
Stanford (7-5), which handed Vanderbilt (10-1) its only loss of the season on Thursday, has played 10 of its first 12 games against Top 25 opponents, and went 5-5 in those contests.
Stanford will break for finals next week and return to Sunken Diamond for a three-game set with Kansas, March 18-20.