Stanford baseball Drops Series to Notre Dame

Stanford baseball continues to falter after a hot start. Taking on Notre Dame at home this weekend, the Cardinal enter Sunday looking to avoid the sweep after losing the first two games of the series to the Fighting Irish on both Friday and Saturday.

Losing game one 9-3, the Cardinal struggled to contain the Notre Dame bats. After Jimmy Nati got Stanford on the board first with an RBI double to put the Cardinal up 1-0, Notre Dame quickly tied things up in the second inning.

A two-run home run from Carson Tinney in the third inning put Notre Dame up 3-1. In the sixth inning, Stanford cut the Notre Dame lead to 3-2 after Temo Becerra hit an RBI double.

But the seventh really saw the Irish take over, with an RBI single from Estevan Moreno and an RBI single from Brady Gumpf made it 5-2 Irish. Notre Dame then scored three more in the eighth when Moreno was hit by a pitch with bases loaded to score the runner from third.

Not long after that, Gumpf hit an RBI single up the middle to score the runners from second and third, making it 8-2 Notre Dame.

In the top of the ninth, Notre Dame made it 9-2 when the runner from third came in to score on a wild pitch. And while Stanford scored its third run to make it 9-3 in the bottom of the ninth, it was not enough to mount a comeback.

On the mound to start the game for Stanford was Joey Volchko, who took the loss to drop to 2-3 on the season after going 6.1 innings and allowing seven hits, five runs (four earned) while striking out five.

Game two saw the Cardinal fall 11-0, with the run rule going into effect after seven innings. The Irish scored a run in each of the first three innings, going up 1-0 in the first when Connor Hincks hit an RBI single to center field.

In the second, a grounder to second base by Jared Zimbardo allowed the runner from third to score, making it 2-0 Notre Dame. Hincks then came up big in the third inning, making it 3-0 Irish when he hit an RBI ground rule double.

After a home run from Carson Tinney in the fifth made it 4-0 Notre Dame, the takeover was fully on from there, with the Irish piling on four more runs in the sixth inning, starting with Nick DeMarco reaching on an error and bringing in the runner to make it 5-0.

After that, Davis Johnson flied out to left field, but the ball was hit deep enough for the runner to score from third-- making it 6-0 Irish. Then, it was Hincks' turn. He brought in two runs when he hit a single to right field which gave Notre Dame the 8-0 lead.

With Stanford then unable to score for the next couple of innings, Notre Dame went into the seventh inning up by eight but extended its lead to 11-0 when Tinney hit a three-run homer to center field. With the Cardinal unable to score in the bottom half of the inning, the game ended after seven.

Trevor Moore started the game and took the loss for the Cardinal, allowing five hits and three runs while walking a pair through 2.1 innings of work.

Taking another series loss, the Cardinal may have put themselves out of postseason consideration, but will look to get back on track so that they can finish the season strong. Currently sitting at 19-16, the Cardinal will look to get back on track with a win on Sunday. First pitch for the series finale will be at 1:05 p.m. (PT).