We face the Stanford Cardinal tonight at 6 on ESPN in an elimination game in the College World Series at TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha.
The questions are who will we start, who are they going to start and can we hit the dadgum baseball tonight and make something happen on the bases. Defense is always critical as well.
I like Christian Little to start for us. CL is a hoss and has superb stuff. He pitched exceptionally well against Ole Miss in the SEC Tournament and deserves to be out there. Our team needs him out there. Christian was spectacular in 6 innings against Ole Miss before leaving the game in the 7th with a minor forearm issue. But our coaches were just being careful with him. I like Patrick Reilly as well, and Patrick is a tremendous competitor, but I’d give the nod to Christian tonight. He reminds me a lot of Kumar two years ago. He’s made for this. Christian is 3-1 with a 5.02 ERA with 16 walks and 44 K’s in 37 innings pitched. Patrick is 4-2, 4.89 with 24 walks and 52 K’s in 42 innings. I just prefer Christian with Patrick in the pen ready to go, if necessary.
Jack pitched such a terrific game Monday Night that it was too bad it was wasted by our anemic hitting. N.C. State had a couple of good arms, no doubt, but we gotta do better than that. We need to make something happen on the bases, too, if our bats aren’t clicking tonight.
I’m predicting Stanford will start sophomore left hander Quinn Mathews. He’s 5-2 with a 6.02 ERA with 32 walks and 55 K’s. They’ve already used their 2 best starting pitchers, so this may be a bullpen game for Stanford if Mathews isn’t effective.
They hit .284 as a team, their team ERA is 4.61 and they are fielding at a .979 clip, so they’re good on defense and pretty strong with the bats. Their leading hitter is rightfielder Christian Robinson, who hits .321 with 8 homers and 48 RBIs. Centerfielder Brock Jones hits .302 with 17 homers and 59 RBI’s and was 3 for 5 Monday against Zona with a homer, a double and 5 RBIs in a 14-5 victory which knocked Arizona out of the Series. Third baseman Drew Bowser hits .303 with 7 homers and 41 RBIs and was also 3 for 5 Monday against Zona with a double and 2 RBIs. So they’ve got some hitting. They lost their first game last Saturday to N.C. State, 10-4.
So our guys, Enrique, Carter, Dom, Javy, Isaiah, Troy LaNeve or Jack Bulger, whomever starts against the lefty, Parker Noland and C.J. Rodriguez are going to need to bear down tonight at the plate and help our pitchers out. Nick Maldonado and Luke Murphy will be available out of the bullpen.
The perfect scenario would be for Christian or Patrick to go 7 or 8 and for us to close it with Luke and Nick with a minimal amount of pitches thrown by each pitcher. But we’ve got to hit and make something happen on the bases if we expect to make it to Friday versus N.C. State. We’ve got it in us, we’re still hitting .294 as a team, so we need to show America the real Vanderbilt at the plate tonight. Have to pitch and defend well as always.
Anchor Down. Let’s get the job done tonight and advance to Friday. Major challenge. I see our guys being up to the challenge.