Arizona baseball blown out by Stanford as Cardinal even series

One day removed from possibly their most impressive win of the season, the Arizona Wildcats fell to the third-ranked Stanford Cardinal on Saturday by a score of 13-3.

Arizona drops to 19-21 overall and 7-13 in the Pac-12.

The Wildcats came out hot to begin the game. First baseman Matthew Dyer doubled down the left field line as the second batter of the game. The next batter, catcher Austin Wells, tripled down the right field line to score Dyer. A ground out by Nick Quintana scored Wells and gave Arizona a 2-0 lead.

Stanford answered with four of their own off Arizona starter Andrew Nardi. With two outs and the bases empty, Nardi walked outfielder Brandon Wulff. A single and a double then tied the game at 2-all. A walk and another double two batters later gave the Cardinal a 4-2 lead.

Stanford added another run in the third, making the score 5-2.

In the fifth, Nardi recorded an out before allowing two singles. UA coach Jay Johnson then decided to remove him favor of Nate Brown, who walked the bases loaded, before walking in a run and surrendering a grand slam home run to Stanford third baseman Nick Bellafronto.

One inning later, Brown found himself in trouble again. He gave up leadoff homer, then another one three batters later. After allowing two more hits, and one more run, Brown’s work was done, and the Wildcats were down 13-2.

Arizona scored one more run from a Well RBI single in the top of seventh for the final run of the game.

All told, Arizona’s pitching was awful yet again. Nardi was pulled after 4 1/3 innings, allowing 7 runs from 6 hits and 5 walks. Brown was also bad, allowing six runs on five hits and two walks in just 1 2/3 innings. He also allowed all three of Stanford’s home runs. Randy Abshier and Cameron Haskell also saw appearances.

Despite scoring two runs in the first inning, Arizona’s offense was largely ineffective. Wells was the star offensive player. He had two hits and two RBIs. Ryan Holgate had two hits.

Arizona will look to win the rubber match Sunday at 1:05 p.m. MST.

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