Stanford, facing men’s CWS elimination game, has thrived in must-win settings
Having been with Stanford for four full seasons, left-hander Quinn Mathews seems to have a pretty good handle on his team’s personality.
“We never like to make it easy on ourselves,” Mathews said last week.
No kidding. Stanford advanced to the College World Series in Omaha, Neb. by going 5-0 in elimination games earlier this month in the Regional and Super Regionals on its own home field. Now the Cardinal face another do-or-die game Monday when it plays Tennessee, with Mathews expected to start.
“I think we do a really good job with our backs against the wall of just not forgetting that it’s the same game we’ve been playing all year,” junior first baseman Carter Graham said Saturday after Stanford’s 3-2 opening-round loss to No. 1 Wake Forest. “I think a mistake in those games is to think that you have to do more or try harder and worry about failure.”
In the best-of-three Super Regional, Stanford lost Game 1 in gutting fashion as a three-run lead in the ninth inning slipped away in what became a 7-5 loss to the Longhorns. But Mathews got the start in Game 2 and threw a staggering 156 pitches in a complete-game effort as the Cardinal kept its season alive with an 8-3 win. It was the second-most pitches thrown by a Division I player this year.
Stanford then secured its third straight trip to Omaha with a 7-6 win over Texas one week ago.
“It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission,” Mathews told Bay Area News Group about the heavy load in his last start. “In my eyes, it’s like weight lifting. You do it for 10 years and people are only going to see one day’s worth and freak out. Nobody does this. Yeah, nobody does it, and it’s out of the ordinary, and I’m not saying I’m going to do it ever again in my life, but I built up for it all year. My limit was going to be pushed. I was ready for it.”
With more than a week of rest since that game — and a college degree earned in the meantime — Mathews will face a Tennessee team that, like Stanford against Wake Forest’s Rhett Lowder, ran into a dominant pitcher on Saturday in LSU’s Paul Skenes.
The Volunteers fell 5-3 to their SEC rivals on Saturday, sending them into the elimination bracket. They struck out 14 times and trailed 5-0 entering the eighth inning but forced Skenes, a projected top-five MLB Draft pick, from the game and scored three runs in the frame before bringing the tying run to the plate in the ninth.
Whether they can build off that momentum against Mathews will go a long way toward determining who stays in Omaha for another elimination game Tuesday and, potentially, a third straight loser-goes-home game Wednesday. Tennessee has seen its own hot run in key games: After losing in the first round of the SEC Tournament, the Volunteers won on the road in the Clemson Regional and beat host Southern Mississippi in the Super Regional round to reach the CWS for a third straight season, like Stanford.
Monday’s starter for the Vols will be Chase Dollander (7-6, 4.50), who came back to earth this season after being one of college baseball’s best pitchers in 2022.
“I probably have as much confidence in that guy as anybody else on the staff,” Vols coach Tony Vitello said Saturday of Dollander.
The path ahead for the Cardinal may be daunting, but head coach David Esquer is confident his group can keep up its strong performances in must-win games.
“When people ask why we’re so good in elimination games, I think a lot has to do with the culture of your program,” Esquer said after Saturday’s loss. “They don’t want to give that jersey up. They don’t want it to be the last day they spend with their teammates. I think they fight harder knowing that that’s a possibility. And I think that’s kind of hats off to the brotherhood and the culture that our program has.”
Couldn’t be on The Farm for graduation, so had to show our guys some love in Omaha!
Congrats, fellas #GoStanford pic.twitter.com/ajdcOb5jXz
— Stanford Baseball (@StanfordBSB) June 18, 2023