“When there is no offense, there is no hope”

-Abeytia Family Proverb

And just like that, Stanford’s magical 2018 baseball season is at death’s door. The Stanford Daily published a roundtable on Friday that featured yours truly as well as two other Cardinal beat writers and all three of us unanimously said Stanford’s susceptibility to offensive slumps was the biggest concern and ye verily, it has come to pass.

Obsess over the close play on the double-play call in the eighth, but the reason you are obsessing over a very close play (replay showed Stowers was out by the way) is that Stanford generated just five at-bats with runners in scoring position. They went hitless for the first four innings and have scored just five runs in 23 postseason innings. College baseball is the sport’s Upside Down when compared to the Majors. You hit your way to and through Omaha, and Stanford’s offense has come up lacking at the worst possible time.

Last night, Stanford was a frustrating 3-16 with runners in scoring position, but that was far better than simply flatlining at the plate, which is what Stanford did tonight against the Titans. Sophomores Kyle Stowers and Will Matthiessen are a collective 1-18 in the postseason. Wulff, Molfetta and Alec Wilson are 4-21 (.190) hitting from the bottom of the order over the course of two games. Beau Branton is 1-9 at the top of the order. Nico Hoerner and Tim Tawa are both 4-10 and are really the only bright spots in this lineup right now.

Hoerner didn’t have much to offer in the way of an explanation for the offense, which is fair. Hitting on your own is hard enough, but accounting for the ups and downs of an entire lineup is not easy to do. Esquer thought the team had its chances, but alluded to some anxiousness at the plate. “The tale of this one obviously was we had a number of opportunities to score some runs and get a big swing and they had an opportunity and got the big swing. Kris did an outstanding job tonight. He was at his all-time best. Good as I've ever seen. We needed him in a big moment, and I'm really proud of our guys. We played a great ballgame. That was a great ballgame back and forth and each team was holding each other down and making big pitches to get big outs. On our side it was probably that we just haven't been able to relax down and have that big at bat in the spot and hopefully we'll play enough baseball tomorrow by the time we get out tomorrow we'll feel real comfortable swinging the bat.”

It makes sense. Again, this is a very young Stanford team, one that started five underclassmen (Fullerton started three) in the batting lineup and one searching for answers. Stanford has found its way out of funks like this before, most recently in Corvallis and Seattle. Esquer has not wavered in his faith in the team at any point this season, and he went back to oft-repeated reasons why as the Cardinal’s presser closed. “God I've had so much trust in our team the whole year. Their preparation gives me a lot of faith and just how much they care about it and care about each other. It's as close a group as I've been around. I have a lot of faith in the trust they have in each other and I know they're accountable to each other. And I know that it's not because a coach is going to the whip or really pushing 'em hard. It really is about what they bring to the field to play for each other."

There’s really not much more to say. Stanford got two great efforts from Tristan Beck and Kris Bubic, and now it’s for the bats to pick up a pitching staff that is going to be pressed tomorrow. We don’t know who starts against Baylor yet, but it will either be Erik Miller or Brendan Beck. Best case scenario is that the Cardinal has to find arms for 18 innings tomorrow. They’ll need their bats to deliver to even get to that dilemma however. Slumps happen. You’re not hitting until suddenly you’re hitting. It’s the way the game goes. The excruciating twist of the knife in the postseason is that small samples determine outcomes and there is no negotiating around it. Stanford has had answers all year long and they do have the offensive talent to break out even if their lineup is a bit shorter than they’d like it to be right now. They have nine innings to find that one big swing Esquer referred to tonight, lest they find themselves reliving some very unpleasant recent history at Sunken Diamond.

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R.J. Abeytia has been contributing to The Bootleg since 2014. You can follow him on Twitter at @RJ_Abeytia and follow The Bootleg @TheBootleg for up to the moment Cardinal news and analysis.

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