Stanford Baseball Travels to Fullerton for Their First Series of the Season

The College Baseball season is officially underway.

Stanford will play their first weekend series of the year in Fullerton, CA, where they take on Cal State Fullerton in four games, beginning today, and running through Monday. The series contains a few big storylines: Rintaro Sasaki’s first game and Stanford looking for revenge after last seasons’ defeat.

Last season, Stanford hosted the Titans in their opening weekend series, losing two of three games overall. In game one, the Titans put up three runs early, and held on to win the game 4-0. Game two was even worse for the Cardinal, who went down 12-1 at the games’ halfway point before ultimately losing 15-6.

Stanford’s top pitchers, Matt Scott and Christian Lim both had poor games, and the offenses weren’t much help. In game three however, the Cardinal salvaged a game, winning 4-1 on Sunday, headlined by a 3-for-5 performance from second baseman Owen Cobb.

The series loss for Stanford was heartbreaking, and the rest of the season followed suit, as the Cardinal finished the year 22-33, having their worst season since 1946. The road series win by CSU Fullerton brought their hopes high, but the Titans ultimately finished 14-38, their worst season in program history.

Regardless of both teams’ disastrous seasons, both teams are great programs, who rarely have the seasons that they did. According to D1Baseball, both teams are top programs in the country, with Stanford listed at 11th while CSU Fullerton is 58th.

Stanford announced their starting pitchers for the weekend series, with Matt Scott as the Friday night starter, followed by left-hander Christian Lim on Saturday, and Joey Volchko on Sunday. All three starters ended up ranked among the top-43 starters in the nation. The Monday starter is TBD.

CSU Fullerton has not announced their starters, but have lots of pitchers such as Mikiah Negrete, Jason Blood, and Jason Krakoski who could fill the role as a starter over the four game series.

Rintaro Sasaki and Charlie Bates will make their debut in the series too. Sasaki, the Japanese native, was ranked as the top freshman in the country per Baseball America. The six-foot, 249 pound phenom is expected to be a star for the Cardinal, and Stanford fans are dying to see him play for the first time.

Bates, the hometown kid, was ranked as the 16th best freshman by Baseball America. The Palo Alto native is looking to be a star in college, and was ranked highly coming out of Palo Alto High School. Both players are projected to be stars at the college level, and their journey starts on Friday.

This is a great opening series, as it will truly show which team wants to bounce back more. Stanford enters as the series favorite, projecting to take about three of four games in the series. If they are able to meet or exceed expectations, the Cardinal will be off to a hot start in a massive bounceback season.