STANFORD, Calif. --- The first meeting between Stanford and UC Irvine baseball was low-scoring and fell the Cardinal's way, 4-1, Friday afternoon at the Sunken Diamond.
HOME COOKING
The scoring was all Stanford (8-1) early taking a second-inning 1-0 lead on a dead-center home run by Vincent Martinez. The Cardinal slowly stretched out their advantage with single runs in the fourth inning and fifth inning on one-out singles. They would bookend it with another solo shot in the sixth inning to go up 4-0 and knock
Trenton Denholm from the game.
Denholm, a native of El Dorado Hills in Northern California, hung in and kept the Anteaters close, but was hung with the loss after 92 pitches in 5.1 innings scattering the nine hits while walking just one and striking out three.
NO ANSWER
The offense sputtered for UC Irvine (5-5) going dormant after a two-out, first-inning double by
Adrian Damla. The 'Eaters managed to draw six walks against starter Brendan Beck, but he never wilted shutting out UCI through his 6.1 innings allowing just two hits and striking out eight.
LATE LIFE
The 'Eaters had chances in the seventh and eighth to get back in the game. Beck was out of the game after a
Thomas McCaffrey double and walk to
Woody Hadeen. Another walk loaded the bases from reliever Austin Weiermiller, but he managed to escape with the lead and shutout intact.
UCI did push a run across in the eighth started by
Luke Spillane's single and then a stolen base that busted his shoelace. With Spillane in scoring position,
Taishi Nakawake shot a two-out single through the middle to score him, but the runs quit after that as the final four Anteaters went down to sew up the defeat.
FINAL: STANFORD 4, UC IRVINE 1
The Cardinal have now won five straight and continue to be unbeaten at home. Beck improved to 2-0 with help from Zach Grech saving his fourth game.
The Anteaters got solid pitching from Denholm, and the bullpen picked him up going 2.2 hitless from
Tanner Brooks and
Gordon Ingebritson. Brooks, making his UCI and Division I debut, struck out a pair of hitters without allowing a baserunner.
Offensively, the UCI hits were scattered between Damla and McCaffrey, who each doubled and walked, and singles by Nakawake and Spillane. Nakawake now has a hit and RBI in four straight games. Spillane scored the lone run and added his third stolen base.
Another debut was from
Caden Kendle in the starting lineup, his first in now his fifth Anteater game. He didn't show up on the stat sheet, but made a remarkable diving catch on the warning track and into the fence.
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The 'Eaters continue to search for their first-ever win against Stanford, now 0-5, and still winless in four games at Stanford. Friday's game was nearly 40 years to the day as the last meeting in 1981.
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"That's a Friday night game. Their guy threw the ball well, you get limited opportunities, and if you don't take advantage of those opportunities, you end up on the short side of 4-1."
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"We've talked about the depth we have this year and the need to play multiple guys. We have some guys banged up so it's a good opportunity for a lot of guys. You see McCaffrey whose been awesome ever since we've started playing him, and that was awesome to see out of Tanner Brooks. We think he can be good, he's shown some flashes of it, and to see him do that has been encouraging."
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"We talked about it after UCLA - if we play well, we can play with and beat anyone in the country. This is a good Stanford team, if we play well, I like our chances. We're excited and glad we've got three more opportunities."
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Doubleheader Ahead
The sides will play two on Saturday starting at 1:05 p.m. with left-handers
Nick Pinto and Quinn Mathews square off. Game two will start approximately 40 minutes after the first game.
