[Sam Leopold]

It's a little bit of a shame Stanford didn't get to face LSU.  We would have been the underdog in any hypothetical matchup this year but it still would have been nice to see it play out on the field.  If you could take this year's Stanford team and clean up the clown league mistakes on the basepaths and elsewhere, I bet Stanford could go toe-to-toe with LSU for the right to play for the national title.

That makes no sense. So despite the mistakes, they made it to Omaha. I don't recall any mistakes other than pitching not holding a lead in both games in Omaha.

OK.  Here are the other standout events that shaped our game with Wake Forest on Saturday:

* Moore gets held up at third, probably wrongly, on Becerra's single in the 6th.
* Becerra then gets picked off to end the inning.
* Tommy Troy walks to start the seventh and immediately gets picked off.
* Right after that Carter Graham drives a double and then a lightning delay gets Drew Dowd, who was locking down the Deacons lineup, out of the game.

Wake Forest themselves attributed their win in the first round to that lightning delay:  Wake Forest changes 'vibe,' tops Stanford in opener at MCWS - ESPN  In retrospect, that has the appearance of an admission of some flaws in their camp, because in the subsequent de facto best-of-three series that they played against LSU they eventually lost.

I don't think Stanford this year was good enough to beat LSU.  Paul Skenes in particular is better than any starter we could offer, and he would have given our lineup a real hard time.  But we were arguably good enough to get on a field with LSU.

[Sam Leopold]

It's a little bit of a shame Stanford didn't get to face LSU.  We would have been the underdog in any hypothetical matchup this year but it still would have been nice to see it play out on the field.  If you could take this year's Stanford team and clean up the clown league mistakes on the basepaths and elsewhere, I bet Stanford could go toe-to-toe with LSU for the right to play for the national title.

That makes no sense. So despite the mistakes, they made it to Omaha. I don't recall any mistakes other than pitching not holding a lead in both games in Omaha.

OK.  Here are the other standout events that shaped our game with Wake Forest on Saturday:

* Moore gets held up at third, probably wrongly, on Becerra's single in the 6th.
* Becerra then gets picked off to end the inning.
* Tommy Troy walks to start the seventh and immediately gets picked off.
* Right after that Carter Graham drives a double and then a lightning delay gets Drew Dowd, who was locking down the Deacons lineup, out of the game.

Wake Forest themselves attributed their win in the first round to that lightning delay:  Wake Forest changes 'vibe,' tops Stanford in opener at MCWS - ESPN  In retrospect, that has the appearance of an admission of some flaws in their camp, because in the subsequent de facto best-of-three series that they played against LSU they eventually lost.

I don't think Stanford this year was good enough to beat LSU.  Paul Skenes in particular is better than any starter we could offer, and he would have given our lineup a real hard time.  But we were arguably good enough to get on a field with LSU.