Making history as the first Cardinal to go deep four times in one game, junior first baseman Andrew Daschbach led No. 3 Stanford (38-9, 19-5 Pac-12) to a 7-1 victory over Cal Poly (24-25, 13-5 Big West) on Tuesday.
“I’ve never seen a performance like that in my entire career as a coach, nor as a player,” Stanford head coach David Esquer said. “Daschbach picked up the team on his shoulders tonight, and we certainly needed it tonight when we were lacking other forms of offense.”
Daschbach (.313/.400/.639) put the Cardinal on the board with a leadoff home run to the left field trees in the second inning. In the same inning, redshirt junior second baseman Duke Kinamon was caught trying to stretch a single, but sophomore shortstop Tim Tawa reached on an automatic double two pitches later. In just two more pitches, redshirt junior third baseman Nick Bellafronto doubled Tawa home, which was the final run allowed by RHP Jarred Zill in his inning of work.
Cal Poly’s next pitcher, Ryan Jameson was helped by the center field defense of Bradley Beesley, who robbed a home run from senior right fielder Brandon Wulff. The Mustangs used six pitchers in the game, with none lasting longer than 2.0 innings.
Despite a pair of loud outs to the warning track, freshman RHP Alex Williams (7-1, 2.50 ERA) pitched a perfect first inning. He hit a batter in the second, and a Mustang reached base on an error in the third — but Williams did not allow a hit until a two-out single in the fourth inning. Williams pitched a career-high 7.2 innings, the second most by any Cardinal pitcher this season — allowing just four hits, one earned run and striking out three.
Junior RHP Zach Grech surrendered a double to Beesley that scored an inherited runner. Sophomore LHP Austin Weiermiller pitched a clean ninth inning with two strikeouts.
Daschbach homered in his next three at-bats with solo shots in the fourth and eighth and a two-run homer in the sixth with Wulff aboard. In doing so, he became the first Division I baseball player to hit the long ball four times in a game this season, and he is just the second Pac-12 player to accomplish the feat.
Bellafronto scored on a fielder’s choice in the seventh inning after walking and advancing on two wild pitches.
“The next two weekends will be against Super Regional-quality teams, so it will give us a chance to test ourselves and figure out what we need to do to win in the postseason,” Esquer said.
The Cardinal host No. 11 Oregon State (34-15-1, 19-5 Pac-12) this weekend in a series that could potentially determine the fate of the conference.
Contact Daniel Martinez-Krams at danielmk ‘at’ stanford.edu.