Off to Oregon

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Stanford has a few opportunities this weekend to buck some recent trends. The Cardinal has dropped five in a row, and has lost its last 11 games to Oregon State dating back to 2012. Stanford will look to end both those streaks during a three-game set with the 10th-ranked Beavers in Corvallis, Friday-Sunday. 

Series History

All-time vs. Oregon State (since 1964): 40-37 (.519)
Streak: Oregon State, 11 • Last Series: L 2-5, L 5-7, L 3-12 at Sunken Diamond
• Stanford last beat Oregon State May 4, 2012 in the opener of a three-game set in Corvallis.
• Oregon State’s 11-game winning streak over the Cardinal is the longest in the program’s history against the Cardinal.
• Stanford swept the 2010 series, but has lost 14 of 15 to the Beavers since then.

Current Cardinal against Oregon State
• Saturday starter Chris Castellanos has a 6.00 ERA in 6.0 innings (2 app) vs. the Beavers.
• Junior Tommy Edman has hit .308 in five career games against Oregon State.
• Sophomore Matt Winaker hit .400 with 2 doubles and 4 RBI in 3 games last year vs. OSU.
• Reliever Chris Viall has a 3.38 ERA in 5.1 innings (2 app) vs. the Beavers.

Pac-12 All-Century Team

• Four Stanford legends were among the 30 players selected to the Pac-12 Baseball All-Century Team, revealed on the Pac-12 Networks' flagship show, ‘Pac-12 Sports Report' on Monday night.
• Three Cardinal pitchers -- Jack McDowell, Mike Mussina, and Mark Appel -- were among those honored as well as former Cardinal catcher and current Houston Astros manager A.J. Hinch.

Congrats to the four Cardinal named to the @pac12 All-Century baseball team! #GoStanford https://t.co/NdzVu9T5Ay pic.twitter.com/pwXk5NiX4X

— Stanford Baseball (@StanfordBSB) April 19, 2016

We're No. 1

• Stanford entered the weekend ranked No. 1 in the nation in fielding percentage (.986).
• The Cardinal has the fewest errors in the country (295 teams) with just 18 in the first 35 games. Western Michigan is second with 22 errors in 36 games. The team record for fewest errors in a season is 49 set in 2009 (current pace of just 27 errors).
• In addition to those two categories, Stanford pitching also entered the week atop the Pac-12 in ERA (2.93), opposing batting average (.224), and fewest runs (121), earned runs (102), hits (252), doubles (38), and home runs (12) allowed. Second-fewest walks (113).
• Most of those numbers aren’t even close:
     - Stanford’s ERA is nearly a half run better than No. 2 Cal (3.36).
     - Stanford has allowed 27 fewer runs than No. 2 Oregon State & 105 fewer than Utah.
     - Stanford has allowed 100 fewer hits than two Pac-12 teams.

The nation's best defense was just showing off last night https://t.co/ivhXCIpYdr

— Stanford Baseball (@StanfordBSB) April 20, 2016

Stanford Stats

• Stanford is No. 12 in the nation in ERA (2.93) and has allowed the sixth-fewest earned runs (102) in the country.
• Stanford is also No. 7 in the NCAA in hits per nine innings (7.25) and No. 9 in WHIP (1.17).
• Stanford has held its opponent to two or fewer runs 16 times this year (15-1), and allowed more then two runs 15 times (4-15).
• The Cardinal is 10-2 this year when scoring first and 11-3 when hitting a home run.

Stanford Streaks

• Stanford opponents have scored first in eight straight games.
• Junior Alex Dunlap has reached base in 10 straight games—the longest active streak for Stanford. Matt Winaker reached in 14 consecutive games earlier this year.
• Winaker’s five-game hit streak is currently the longest active streak for Stanford—Mikey Diekroeger had an eight-game hit streak from April 2-15.
• Junior Chris Castellanos is No. 11 in the nation in walks and has allowed just one free pass in the last 22.1 innings.
• Junior shortstop Tommy Edman has played in 124 straight games (started 121 in a row).
• Stanford won its first three Pac-12 series for the first time since 2008 when the Cardinal finished third at the College World Series (won first five that year).

Closing the Door

• Stanford’s bullpen has an ERA of 2.23 and opponents are hitting just .203.
• The reserves also have 141 strikeouts (compared to 60 walks and 99 hits) in 137.0 inn
• Six different pitchers have an ERA under 2.00 coming out of the bullpen this year.
• Stanford is 16-1 when leading after seven innings this season.

Stanford in the Show

• Six Cardinal made Opening Day rosters, and AJ Hinch began his second season as manager of the Houston Astros.
• Here is a full list of Stanford alums in the show: http://stanford.io/23yl6W6

Great first week of @MLB! Six Cardinal were on Opening Day rosters! #StanfordMLB rundown » https://t.co/aqvmB3pipm pic.twitter.com/2bLPXqR0fc

— Stanford Baseball (@StanfordBSB) April 11, 2016

Fab Freshmen

• Tristan Beck leads the team in wins (4), Nico Hoerner has started 30 of 31 games, Duke Kinamon has played in 19 of the last 20 games, and Brandon Wulff was one of the team’s hottest hitters prior to an injury on April 5.
• Beck became the second Stanford freshman to start Opening Day since Mike Mussina in 1988 (teammate Cal Quantrill was the other in 2014).
• In all, head coach Mark Marquess added 11 freshmen in his latest recruiting class.
• Three pitchers (one lefty), four infielders, three outfielders and a catcher. Six are from the homestate of California, three from Georgia and one apiece from Colorado & Nevada.

.@t_beck07 is the first Cardinal with 11 strikeouts since @MAppel26 (2013 MLB No. 1 overall pick) on 5/17/13 v. Cal pic.twitter.com/fyYlzuXdgI

— Stanford Baseball (@StanfordBSB) April 23, 2016

Pac-12 Pitchers of the Week

• Stanford won the first two Pac-12 Pitcher of the Week awards this season.
• Colton Hock earned the award on March 1 after throwing 5.2 scoreless innings in relief in the longest recorded shut out in the program’s history (since 1959)—Stanford won at #23 Texas, 1-0 in 12 innings, on Feb. 25. Hock finished with a career-high eight strikeouts and allowed just three hits.
• Tristan Beck earned the conference honor in the first week—he was the first Stanford hurler to win the award since 2013 MLB first overall pick Mark Appel in May of 2013.

2016 Schedule

• 54 regular season games, 30 at Klein Field.
• More than half of the schedule (30/55, 54.5%) is against 2015 tournament teams.
• Cal (5), Texas (4), Cal St. Fullerton (3), UCLA (3), USC (3), Oregon (3), Oregon State (3), Arizona State (3), Vanderbilt (3).
• Though the preseason Top 25 rankings varied, each included at least 20+ games for Stanford against Top 25 opponents.
• 11-day break from March 7-17 for finals.
• Longest homestand was seven games and 20 days long (March 1-20).
• Longest road swing is four games (four times).
• First 11 games were played in 13 days.
• Eighteen Stanford baseball games will be broadcast on the Pac-12 Networks in 2016.

Last Time Out

• Stanford was swept by Arizona State at Sunken Diamond and dropped a mid-week matchup with Santa Clara on Tuesday.
• Freshman Tristan Beck struck out a career-high 11 batters, but the Cardinal was edged in the series opener with Arizona State, 3-2, on Friday night. The Sun Devils tallied one in the second, but Stanford answered with the next two. But the Sun Devils used three hits and a sacrifice fly to score the deciding runs in the seventh.
• On Saturday, ASU led 3-2 after five, but Stanford scored three in the sixth on a solo home run by Quinn Brodey and a two-RBI double by Austin Barr to take a 5-3 lead. The Sun Devils responded with five in the next half inning to take an 8-5 lead, and went on to win, 9-6.
• In the series finale on Sunday, Stanford lost in extras, 8-7. The Cardinal held leads of 2-1, 4-3 and 6-4, but the Sun Devils scored three in the seventh to lead 7-6. Tommy Edman reached on an error to drive in the tying run in the ninth, but Arizona State won it with a solo home run in the top of the tenth.
• On Tuesday, John Hochstatter went 4.0 innings in the longest outing since his Tommy John surgery. He surrendered just two earned runs, but Stanford never led and fell 4-2 to the Broncos in Santa Clara.

Up Next

• The Cardinal is in the middle of a stretch of 11 of 15 games on the road.
• That stretch ends with this trip to Corvallis to take on Oregon State (April 29-May 1).
• Only home series in this road stretch was against Arizona State last weekend.
• Next week, Stanford hosts a mid-week with San Francisco on Tuesday (5:30 p.m.), and a three-game series with rival Cal on the Pac-12 Networks (Thursday-Saturday, 7 p.m.).

Big road trip to No. 10 Oregon State #GoStanford🌲

A photo posted by Stanford Baseball (@stanfordbsb) on Apr 27, 2016 at 4:25pm PDT