April 23, 2012
TUCSON, Ariz.-- Stanford freshman Alex Blandino was named the national player of the week by Collegiate Baseball on Monday after hitting four home runs, driving in 11 and batting .563.
He was also today named the Pac-12 Conference's Player of the Week. On Tuesday he was named the National Collegiate Baseball Writer's Player of the Week and Collegebaseball360.com primetime performer of the week.
Blandino's week began with a two-run home run on Tuesday in a 3-2 loss to San Jose State. He added two home runs on Friday as a part of a 3-for-4 day with four runs and four RBIs in a 19-5 win over No. Arizona State.
The Palo Alto native and St. Francis High grad then homered on Saturday and had the game-winning RBI in the ninth of the team's 8-7 victory. Four of his first seven hits for the week, went for home runs.
On Sunday, he doubled, had an RBI single in the eighth and stole third and scored on an poor throw by the catcher, for his eighth run of the week, sealing the 9-5 victory and sweep of the Sun Devils. He also made a great defensive play early in the game, laying out for a ball across the third base bag and robbing Michael Benjamin of a base hit.
Blandino's week pushed him into the team lead in homers, with six. As he has driven in 22 over 19 games this season. He is batting .350. He started for the first time on March 26, primarily at designated hitter, until this past week, where he started all four games at third base. He has started 16 games overall.
The Cardinal moved up in the national polls as well, ranking No. 9 in the USA Today / Coaches Poll and No. 13 in Baseball America and Collegiate Baseball. The Cardinal host West Coast Conference foe Brigham Young (17-14) on Tuesday at 5:30 p.m., before traveling to No. 10 ranked and second place UCLA (26-10, 11-7 Pac-12) this weekend.