The Cal State Fullerton Titans avoided the sweep this
afternoon at Sunken Diamond with a 6-3 victory over the Stanford
Cardinal. The Titans hitters roughed up Stanford starting
pitcher Mark Jecmen for four runs in the first two innings while
the trio of Fullerton pitchers in Darric Merrell, Jordan DeJong,
and Chad Cordero combined to give up only three runs and eight
hits.
The true freshman Jecmen got the ball to start today and was
touched up for two runs right out of the gate in the first
inning. Titan leadoff hitter Mike Munoz began the game with
a hard hit single and after Jecmen retired #2 hitter Chris
Stringfellow on a pop-up, Shane Costa belted a double to deep
right center scoring Munoz and making the score 1-0. The
next hitter, Kyle Boyer, followed up Costa's big hit with a
single down the right field line scoring Costa and increasing the
lead to 2-0. Jecmen got out of the first without any
further damage and appeared to be starting to get into a groove
when he retired the first two hitters in the top of the
second. But four consecutive Titan hitters reached base on
three singles and a walk and just like that it was 4-0 and
Jecmen's day was done.
The Cardinal got on the board in the bottom of the third
inning off Titan starter Darric Merrell as Arik VanZandt led
things off with a single to left. Chris O'Riordan was then
hit by the pitch and after both runners were balked to second and
third, Sam Fuld grounded out to second scoring Hall and cutting
the lead to 4-1. But in the theme of the afternoon for
Stanford, the Cardinal were unable to come up with any clutch
hitting as Ryan Garko and Jason Cooper were set down without the
second run coming across to score.
Carlos Quentin led off the bottom of the fourth inning and
promptly smoked a deep home run to left field, his second bomb of
the weekend. Brian Hall then reached second base when
Merrell threw a ball away and then advanced to third when Merrell
threw a ball into center field on an attempted pick-off
play. But despite having a runner on third and none out,
Stanford could not bring home the run as Scott Dragicevich and
Andy Topham both struck out and after a VanZandt walk, O'Riordan
grounded out to end the threat.
Meanwhile, John Hudgins who relieved Jecmen in the second
inning was dominating the Titan hitters. He put up zeros in
the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth innings while allowing only
two singles in the process. But the Stanford hitters could
not muster much offense against Merrell as they squandered the
runner at third, none out situation in the fourth and then had
runners at the corners and one out in the fifth, but were unable
to put across any runs. Finally in the sixth, Stanford
broke through as Dragicevich doubled, moved to third on a Topham
single, and then scored on a sacrifice fly by VanZandt.
That was the end of the day for Merrell as he turned the ball
over to the bullpen who went on to shut down the Cardinal hitters
over the final three frames.
With the score 4-3, Fullerton added two insurance runs in the
seventh inning off Hudgins and Dan Rich. After Hudgins
walked the leadoff hitter, he was pulled in favor of Rich who
went on to give up a double, sacrifice fly, and a single and all
of a sudden the lead was pushed back up to three runs at
6-3. J.D. Willcox came on and put out the fire and then put
up zeros in the eighth and ninth innings, but by that time it was
too late. Jordan DeJong who after retiring the final two
batters in the sixth inning, set down the Stanford hitters 1-2-3
in the seventh and eighth innings, and then All-American closer
Chad Cordero came on in the ninth to slam the door shut.
Offensively for Stanford, Jason Cooper (2-for-4), Scott
Dragicevich (2-for-4), Andy Topham (2-for-4), and Carlos Quentin
(1-for-4, HR) had good days. Jecmen picked up the loss
while the outing from Hudgins may make Coach Marquess give a
serious thought to starting him next Sunday.
Game Notes :
* Stanford continued their domination at home as they won their
16th consecutive regular season three-game series at Sunken
Diamond. The last time they dropped a series at home was
back in April of 1999 to USC.
* After the first weekend of play the top Cardinal hitters
statistically are Jason Cooper (.583, 7-for-12), Ryan Garko
(.500, 6-for-12), and Scott Dragicevich (.500, 6-for-12).
* John Hudgins picked up right where he left off at the end of
last season as the sophomore righthander threw 4 1/3 innings of
relief today, yielding only two hits and one run while walking
only one and striking out three.
* Stanford went only 2-for-12 with runners in scoring position
today.
Cal State
Fullerton 2 2 0 0 0
0 2 0 0 - 6
13 2
Stanford
0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 -
3 8 2
Stanford will head out east next weekend as they will take on
the 6th ranked Florida State Seminoles in a three-game series.
** My "Super Sixteen" rankings will be updated after
next weekend after more teams have started their season.