Having clinched another Pac-12 series on Saturday night, as well as a berth in the conference tournament, a day game finale had all the makings for a potential letdown. And early on it looked that way for Arizona.
Bad at-bats at the plate were compounded by multiple mental errors in the field, most in one inning as Stanford took a 2-0 lead in the top of the 2nd inning. That prompted Chip Hale to make a mound visit, something he normally only does when changing pitchers.
“It wasn’t very friendly,” Hale said when asked the gist of his conversation with his infield. “I was just upset. We do a lot of things to get you ready for the game and it just looked like guys weren’t ready.”
But despite that shaky start, Arizona got itself composed and ended up finishing off another series sweep.
A 6-run bottom of the 6th, combined with solid pitching from Cam Walty and two relievers, gave the Wildcats a 7-2 win over Stanford on Sunday afternoon at Hi Corbett. It was their fifth series sweep of the season, fourth in Pac-12 play, and maintained its 2-game lead on Utah heading into next weekend’s trip to Salt Lake City.
Arizona (29-17, 17-7) won its 10th straight conference home game despite managing only a run on three hits over the first five innings against Cardinal starter Gavin Dugan. The tide turned in the 6th when Mason White lead off with a single, stole second and went to third after Garen Caulfield reached on a throwing error.
Stanford pulled Dugan, bringing in a reliever in Joey Volchko who threw six shutout innings on Tuesday. Emilio Corona greeted him with a single to center to tie the game at 2.
It was Corona’s 15th hit during an 8-game hit streak that’s also included six walks. He walked only seven times in his first 39 games this season.
“I’m really just trusting what I’ve been working on and just kind of cleaning up some mechanical things, just trying to stay inside the ball and really just taking what the game gives me,” said Corona, who has his average back up to .280 after being as low as .214 in late March. “If it’s a walk one at-bat take your walks, if it’s a base hit take the hit. Just swinging at the right pitches, for sure.”
After a sac bunt and a pop out, freshman Andrew Cain gave Arizona the lead when he crushed a 97 mph fastball to left-center for a 2-run double. Three more Wildcats would reach after that, capped by Brendan Summerhill’s bases-clearing double to make it 7-2.
That ended a 2-for-28 skid for Summerhill, whom Hale says actually makes too much contact sometimes because he puts pitchers’ pitches into play.
“If he’d swing and miss sometimes early in the count …,” Hale said.
Walty got his conference-leading 7th win by going seven strong, allowing nine hits and walking one. The two runs he gave up were hardly his fault, either.
Stanford’s Malcolm Moore led off the 2nd with a gift double after Corona didn’t see the ball off the bat and it fell innocently between him and Summerhill in right center. And with the Wildcats employing a 4-man outfield, no one rotated to cover second base for Corona’s throw in as Moore got the extra base.
A 1-out single against the shift scored Moore, then a grounder to first should have ended the inning but when Tommy Splaine turned to throw to second he did so to the wrong infielder and no outs were recorded. A single through the right side followed, making it 2-0.
Walty would allow at least one baserunner every inning after that, including loading the bases with two out in the 7th, but each time worked himself out of his own mess.
“Walty kept us in it with really, really good pitching, kind of let the guys settle down and then they got it going,” Hale said.
Casey Hintz and Tonko Susac followed with perfect 8th and 9th innings, with Susac recording a ninth consecutive scoreless frame since getting moved to the bullpen. He’s allowed seven baserunners and struck out 16 in that span.
Arizona has its second-best record in school history after 24 conference games but is no guarantee to win the Pac-12 title. The Wildcats face their two closest challengers the final two weekends, first at Utah (30-15, 15-9) and then the regular-season finale May 16-18 at Hi Corbett against Oregon State (35-12, 14-9).
Before that, though, is one last nonconference game Tuesday at ASU. The Sun Devils took two of three in Tucson in March.
“We want to score 100 and give up zero,” Summerhill said. “We want to beat them, they will they beat us here this year. So we’re gonna go up there and play our butts off and beat them as bad as we can.”