[Sam Leopold]

Crucial back to back sweeps to make up (in part) for dropping a series in Seattle. As someone who is always critical of coaching decisions, I must tip my cap to Coach Esquer. He has two veteran arms in Williams and Mathews that are absolutely dealing week in and week out. The adjustment he made to Mathews' role (as a band-aid for a struggling bullpen) completely turned the season around. This weekend was a great example of the evolution of the game plan. In Seattle, Mathews was called upon early in game 3, to get the game back on track, which he did. However, using him early left a few outs for the rest of the bullpen to get and that turned sour fast. Yesterday he let the game play out knowing he could get about 4 innings out of Mathews. Rather than using him to get out of a messy 2nd inning, he waited. Other arms stepped up to steady to game. All of the sudden Mathews is in the game in the 6th and despite a 3 run deficit, it sure felt like Stanford was in a great position to win that game. Credit to the bats for giving this team plenty of chances. Credit to Mathews for getting outs whenever called upon. Credit to Esquer for taking a non traditional route to finding ways to win games!

In my opinion, this was a better coaching job by Esquer than last year.  Last year we had a parent of a player posting on here, who couldn't say enough about how much &%$ his son's team was going to kick.  This year the media outlets ranked us #6 in the preseason, but if you asked me which endorsement I would prefer, I'd go with the relative of a player any day.  But a top 10 preseason ranking by the press isn't bad!  Although, after a good non-conference including a win over Arkansas we had to overcome a 1-5 start in Pac-12 play, with nontrivial judgment calls to be made on both sides of the ball, particularly with the pitching.  Esquer got it right and the rest of the way we went 20-4.  Even though there were some cold flashes along the way like the thumping at the hands of St. Mary's, in conference play we finished 20-4 and all four of those losses were on the road by one run each.  That was it.

One of the nice things about the installation of the Pac-12 tournament is that we'll once again get to play teams that will be in the tourney before the playoffs begin.  Winning twelve straight at the end is nice but none of those teams we beat are going to be in the tourney field.  The conference tourney will keep Stanford from being jarred by the abrupt rise in the level of competition that will occur in the regionals.  While we don't know how it will go from here on out, right now Stanford is bulldozing everything in its path.

[Sam Leopold]

Crucial back to back sweeps to make up (in part) for dropping a series in Seattle. As someone who is always critical of coaching decisions, I must tip my cap to Coach Esquer. He has two veteran arms in Williams and Mathews that are absolutely dealing week in and week out. The adjustment he made to Mathews' role (as a band-aid for a struggling bullpen) completely turned the season around. This weekend was a great example of the evolution of the game plan. In Seattle, Mathews was called upon early in game 3, to get the game back on track, which he did. However, using him early left a few outs for the rest of the bullpen to get and that turned sour fast. Yesterday he let the game play out knowing he could get about 4 innings out of Mathews. Rather than using him to get out of a messy 2nd inning, he waited. Other arms stepped up to steady to game. All of the sudden Mathews is in the game in the 6th and despite a 3 run deficit, it sure felt like Stanford was in a great position to win that game. Credit to the bats for giving this team plenty of chances. Credit to Mathews for getting outs whenever called upon. Credit to Esquer for taking a non traditional route to finding ways to win games!

In my opinion, this was a better coaching job by Esquer than last year.  Last year we had a parent of a player posting on here, who couldn't say enough about how much &%$ his son's team was going to kick.  This year the media outlets ranked us #6 in the preseason, but if you asked me which endorsement I would prefer, I'd go with the relative of a player any day.  But a top 10 preseason ranking by the press isn't bad!  Although, after a good non-conference including a win over Arkansas we had to overcome a 1-5 start in Pac-12 play, with nontrivial judgment calls to be made on both sides of the ball, particularly with the pitching.  Esquer got it right and the rest of the way we went 20-4.  Even though there were some cold flashes along the way like the thumping at the hands of St. Mary's, in conference play we finished 20-4 and all four of those losses were on the road by one run each.  That was it.

One of the nice things about the installation of the Pac-12 tournament is that we'll once again get to play teams that will be in the tourney before the playoffs begin.  Winning twelve straight at the end is nice but none of those teams we beat are going to be in the tourney field.  The conference tourney will keep Stanford from being jarred by the abrupt rise in the level of competition that will occur in the regionals.  While we don't know how it will go from here on out, right now Stanford is bulldozing everything in its path.