February 25, 2004

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Palo Alto Online

Cardinal look ready for extended road trip

by Rick Eymer

By the time Stanford plays a Pac-10 Conference baseball game at Sunken Diamond, the NCAA basketball championship will have been decided, Major League Baseball will have opened its season in earnest, and yet another quarter of college will have been completed.

The schedule has Stanford playing 15 of its next 18 games on the road, including a nonconference series at California beginning Friday at 2 p.m. and a nonconference series at USC the following weekend.

"Those will be good series because we're definitely familiar with the teams," said Stanford center fielder Sam Fuld, who collected his 300th career hit and made a fabulous catch during Stanford's 8-1 victory over Texas on Sunday. "It's tough to go on the road, and the trip to Berkeley is unique and a bit of a challenge."

The fourth-ranked Cardinal (10-2) took two of three from the visiting Longhorns, a nice accomplishment heading out on the road. Stanford won Friday night's game, 7-4, and lost on Saturday, 9-6.

Texas came into Stanford riding a 10-game winning streak, which included a victory over top-ranked and defending national champion Rice.

"The only difference being on the road is not sleeping in your own bed or going to class on Thursday and Friday," said Stanford shortstop Jed Lowrie, who drove in three runs on Sunday, two on his third home run of the season. "The preparation is the same, though you take batting practice second and there's a little more rush to get more done in less time. You just don't want to change your routine. You wake up and stay on schedule."

By the time Stanford returns home to open a six-game stand on April 13, fans may not recognize the players. Throw in a two-week break for finals, and the players may not recognize themselves.

It's actually a pretty cool schedule by modern standards. Stanford doesn't leave the state of California until an April series at Oregon State, and a May trip to Arizona will be the Cardinal's longest of the regular season.

Stanford, of course, wouldn't mind taking a longer trip, oh say of two weeks duration, to Omaha in the middle of June.

"We've had a good run but for us to go on the road and play six tough games against Pac-10 opponents will be a good test," said Stanford coach Mark Marquess. "It will be good for us."

Taking the series from Texas was an important ingredient for the Cardinal. The Longhorns have enough talent to win a national title, which they did in 2002. Stanford has been knocking on the door of a national title for several years. Winning this head-to-head competition says a lot about the Cardinal.

"We may not face a better pitching staff the way they can throw arms out there," said Marquess. "They struck us out a lot this series, more than anyone has. It's not like we got a lot of hits, but we did get some timely hitting and they made some uncharacteristic errors to give us a few runs."

Texas limited Stanford to a .208 batting average over the three games, though it translated that into 21 runs.

The Cardinal pitching staff was up to the task, with the exception of Jeff Gilmore's off-day on Saturday. Freshman Blake Holler (his roommate writes for the Stanford Daily) gave Marquess a quality outing to win his starting debut.

Holler is making it look easy. He has two saves and a victory in three appearances.

"It's really not that easy," Holler assured the gathered media. "Once I settled in I threw strikes and let the defense do the work."

His effort against the Longhorns - one run on three hits with five strikeouts in six innings - earned him another chance to join the rotation along with Gilmore and Mark Romanczuk.

"We'll keep running them out there," said Marquess. "I thought (Holler) was a little wired up to begin with but then settled down."

Fuld became the fifth player in Stanford history to record at least 300 hits, joining Larry Reynolds, A.J. Hinch, Paul Carey and career leader John Gall (368).

Fuld upstaged himself a half-inning later when he made an over-the-shoulder basket catch just in front of the center field fence, his back to the infield. He turned it into a double play by whirling and firing in the general direction of second base as two Texas runners were scrambling around the basepaths.

"I saw the ball coming down at the last second," he said. "I saw a guy rounding second and that he was going back to the base to tag up. That's why I wanted to get the ball back in quickly. After I threw I looked up and saw the guy at third and realized we might get a double play."

David O'Hagan struck out five in two innings of relief to save the game for Mark Romanczuk on Friday. John Mayberry, Jr. and Donny Lucy each drove in two runs.

Texas snapped Stanford's 16-game home winning streak on Saturday with a 9-6 victory. Danny Putnam got two of the Cardinal's seven hits.

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