Max Hartman led off the ninth inning with a walk. Joey Kramer and Alan Shibley both struck out looking and with two outs, Casen Taggart reached on an error. With Hartman and Taggart on base, the Cougs had the tying runs in position to score.
But as Logan Johnstone grounded out to the shortstop, Stanford baseball (13-15, 6-5 Pac-12) snuffed out the WSU baseball (16-13, 6-8) comeback attempt. The Cardinal won 3-1, securing the series win after winning the opener Friday night, just their second Conference series win in an uncharacteristically sub-.500 season.
Stanford’s Christian Lim dominated the Cougs lineup from top to bottom, pitching a complete eight innings and barely breaching the century mark in pitches thrown.
Lim got the first 15 WSU batters out, striking out one batter in each of the first four frames and two in the fifth. He kept things going despite a sixth-inning leadoff walk, retiring the next seven batters while striking out two more.
The Cougs finally started to find their grip in the eighth as Will Cresswell hit a single with one out in the frame, ending Lim’s no-hit bid with just five outs remaining. Cole Cramer hit a double to drive in the Cougs only run of the game, but that is where the rally ended.
Narrowly missing a no-hitter, Lim finished with 8.0 innings pitched, two hits, one walk, eight strikeouts and one earned run on just 102 pitches. His domination came from his command of the zone, throwing 69.6% of his pitchers for strikes, a majority of his pitches causing action.
Those two hits the Cougs mustered were the only two WSU had all night as despite their ninth inning mini-rally, they did so without a hit.
A lack of offense spoiled an otherwise good pitching performance for Wazzu, who ran out Connor Wilford on the bump with the lefty going 6.1 innings while allowing just three runs despite letting up nine hits, one walk and striking out four batters.
Like his counterpart, Wilford also loaded up the zone, throwing 67.3% of his pitchers for strikes.
Liam Miller and Andrew Baughn cleaned things up out of the bullpen, combining for the final five outs and keeping the Cardinal to their three runs.
In 2024, Stanford is 4-1 against the two Washington schools and 2-4 against all others, a season of ups and downs for the historically dominant Cardinal program.
WSU has been outscored 8-4 so far against Stanford but will have one more chance to take down the Cardinal. The series will end as the two programs face off starting at 1:05 in game three of the series.
