April 13, 2004
Walnut Creek, Calif. - Stanford senior outfielder Brian Hall (Carlsbad, NM/Carlsbad HS) and freshman right-handed pitcher Jeff Stimpson (Redondo Beach, CA/Redondo Union HS) swept Pac-10 Player and Pitcher of the Week honors for the period ending April 11 with both players earning their respective honor for the first time. Hall is the first Stanford player to earn the conference's Player of the Week award this season and the 54th in school history. Stimpson is the second Cardinal to earn Pac-10 Pitcher of the Week honors this year and the 66th all-time.
The sweep of the honors is the first for the Cardinal since Ryan Garko and Mark Romanczuk were named the Pac-10 Player and Pitcher of the Week respectively on May 5, 2003.
Hall had an incredible series as the Cardinal won two-of-three on the road at Oregon State (April 8-10), homering in all three games, driving in six runs and hitting .538 (7-13) to go with a 1.231 slugging percentage and four runs scored. Hall hit a key game-tying two-run homer in the top of the eighth inning to tie the game in an eventual 11-8 Stanford victory in Thursday's series-opener. He then began a comeback attempt that fell just short on Friday when he homered in the top of the sixth inning, starting to erase a 5-1 Oregon State lead before the Beavers held on for a 5-4 win. On Saturday, he contributed one of Stanford's season-high-tying five homers in a 16-4 Cardinal victory, while also posting three hits and three RBI. Hall hit safely in all three contests to extend his career-high hit streak to 15 games, the longest by a Stanford player this year. Hall's average has risen 145 points during the streak, going from .208 to its current .353. He has also contributed seven homers, 31 RBI and a team-high eight stolen bases on the season. In his first six Pac-10 games, he is hitting .520 with three homers, eight RBI and three stolen bases.
Stimpson pitched effectively in both of Stanford's wins at Oregon State, striking out six and not allowing a run or a hit in 4.0 innings. In Thursday's series-opener, he came on as the first of three Stanford relief pitchers to pitch 1.1 hitless innings. He got the Cardinal out of a sixth inning jam by retiring both batters he faced after coming in with one out and runners on second and third to help the Cardinal stay in a game it eventually came back to win, 11-8. On Saturday, he came on in relief in the fifth inning and struck out a career-high six batters in 2.2 frames to earn his first collegiate victory. Stimpson is 1-1 with an 0.54 on the season, allowing just one run and nine hits in his first 16.2 collegiate innings with 15 strikeouts.
Second-ranked Stanford (25-5, 4-2 Pac-10) is currently leading the Pac-10 by one-half game over both Arizona and Washington (both 4-3 Pac-10). The Cardinal is the defending Pac-10 champion and has finished second at the College World Series in three of the last four years, while also making a school record five consecutive trips to Omaha.
Stanford begins a six-game homestand by hosting Santa Clara this Tuesday, April 13 (6 pm, PT), before welcoming California for its first home Pac-10 series of the season this Friday-Sunday, April 16-18 (6 pm, 1 pm, 1 pm, PT). Friday's series-opener will be televised by FOX Sports Net and shown on a tape-delayed basis on Saturday, April 17 (3 pm, PT).
Tickets are available for all 2004 regular season Stanford Baseball home games online at gostanford.com or by calling 1-800-STANFORD.