Stanford’s baseball team played its first fall ball game of the year on Saturday against San José State University, taking an early lead in the third inning to win 7–4. The Cardinal are hoping to bounce back from its lackluster 2024 season, when the team lost 60 percent of its games and failed to make the NCAA tournament. In this first exhibition game heading into 2025, the Stanford squad demonstrated its pitching talent and offensive potential — as well as a few defects to work out before the season begins.

Stellar opening from pitcher Matt Scott

Coach David Esquer only gave his ace-in-training three innings to pitch, but junior pitcher Matt Scott didn’t waste any of them. He flipped unpredictably between the three pitches in his arsenal: a fastball consistently clocking in at 93 mph, a disappearing changeup at around 82 mph, and a diving slider for swing-and-miss strikeouts. By the end of his three-inning start, he was hitless with a single walk. San José would need to wait until the fifth inning for its first run.

Now in his junior year, Scott began as a freshman relief pitcher for the Cardinal after declining a 20th round MLB draft opportunity from the Texas Rangers out of high school. This season, he is expected to lead Stanford’s pitching staff as the ace of its starting rotation. If Saturday’s performance is any indication, Scott is more than ready for the role.

Cardinal offense keeps the line moving

Anyone who watched Stanford baseball in 2023 — a year when the team advanced to the College World Series and won nearly 70 percent of its regular season games — should remember its relentless, almost mechanical offense. One hit would beget another hit, then another. Singles and doubles would pile up in a single inning to produce lopsided scorecards. Every hitter in the lineup was a threat to keep the line moving. It was this constantly churning offense that Stanford sorely missed last year, after losing nine of its best players to the MLB draft.

On Saturday, however, the Cardinal showed fans an offense in the third inning reminiscent of 2023. Following a walk by outfielder sophomore Brady Reynolds, junior designated hitter Jimmy Nati hit a single to move Reynolds to third base. Junior first baseman Brandon Larson then laced a single down the middle to bring Reynolds home, and senior catcher Charlie Saum hit an infield single to score Nati. Larson and Saum advanced to second and third base, respectively, on a wild pitch. Finally, senior shortstop Trevor Haskins smacked a double into center field to bring them both home for a total of four runs. All of this action took place after Stanford already had two outs.

Sloppy base-running produces unnecessary outs

If Saturday’s game revealed any area for improvement for Stanford baseball to work on, it was the base-running. On three separate occasions, runners gave their opponents outs for no good reason. The first incident was in the third inning (before the offense took off) when sophomore third baseman Sebastian David hit a leadoff single — only to be tagged out by the first baseman in a misbegotten attempt to steal second base. Had he remained safe at first, the Cardinal may have scored five runs that inning instead of four.

The other two base-running blunders both took place in the seventh inning. Reynolds hit a single with only one out, but got careless trying to run on a ball in the dirt that San José’s catcher picked up and threw to second base for an easy out. Nati tried to reignite the rally with a two-out walk, but he too was tagged out in a rundown when he strayed too far from first base. Stanford was lucky that San José State only scored four runs. In a closer game, those three needless outs could be the difference between winning and losing.

Other notes

• Batting Order: Temo Becerra 2B, Brady Reynolds OF, Jimmy Nati DH, Brandon Larson 1B, Charlie Saum C, Trevor Haskins SS, Saborn Campbell OF, Ethan Hott OF, Sebastian David 3B
• Notably absent from this game was freshman phenom Rintaro Sasaki, whom Stanford recruited last February. Sasaki holds the record for the most high school home runs in his home country of Japan.
• Aside from base-running mishaps, the Cardinal offense hit into three double plays — which is far too many for a single game. These double plays came courtesy of Brady Reynolds in the first inning, Saborn Campbell in the second and Brandon Larson in the fifth. A lesson from Esquer in situational hitting may be necessary.
• The worst inning for Stanford’s defense was the seventh, when shortstop Trevor Haskins failed to get his glove around an infield single, putting San José runners on first and second base. Both runners would come home to score on a hard-hit double to left field off of Cardinal relief pitcher Ben Reimers.
• The only home run of the game was by Stanford catcher Charlie Saum, who hit a two-run blast in the eighth inning with one out, scoring Brandon Larson from first base. Saum’s homer gave the Cardinal two insurance runs heading into the ninth, where closing pitcher Trevor Moore shut the door on San José.