No. 2 Baylor baseball’s season ended in a 4-2 loss to No. 1 Stanford on Sunday at Sunken Diamond in an elimination game at the Stanford Regional. The Bears (37-21) couldn’t overcome an early 4-0 deficit despite an excellent relief outing by Alex Phillips.
Stanford (46-11), the No. 2 overall seed in the NCAA postseason, opened the scoring with a two-run home run in the bottom of the first inning and followed up with two more runs in the second to chase Baylor’s starter Tyler Thomas after just 1.1 innings pitched.
The Bears trailed 4-0 until the top of the fifth when Davion Downey launched his fourth home run of the season and put Baylor on the scoreboard.
Alex Phillips retired the first 14 batters he faced before allowing a hit in the bottom of the sixth. He kept the Cardinal bats scoreless for 5.2 innings, a career-high for innings pitched, and struck out three batters.
Shea Langeliers pulled the Bears within two runs with a solo shot in the top of the seventh to make it 4-2, but that’s as close as Baylor would get, as Stanford’s starter Brendan Beck went 6.2 innings allowing two runs on four hits.
Beck (8-0) earned the win and stayed unbeaten, while Thomas (3-3) took the loss. Jack Little picked up his 16th save of the season for the Cardinal.
NOTES
*Baylor won 24 of its last 29 games.
*Baylor is 7-10 under head coach Steve Rodriguez and 95-157 all-time against Baseball America top 10 opponents. The Bears last win over a Baseball America top 10 team came on March 17, 2018 against No. 8 Texas Tech (12-2).
*Baylor is 17-25 against ranked opponents under Rodriguez and went 5-7 in 2018.
*Baylor is 15-20 under Rodriguez against Baseball America ranked opponents and went 5-6 in 2018.
*Baylor is 209-308-1 all-time against Baseball America ranked opponents.
*Baylor made its 20th NCAA Regional appearance and second straight for the first time since 2009-12.
*Baylor is 44-43 all-time in the NCAA Championship, 37-30 in regionals and 4-12 in away regional contests.
*Baylor scored 166 runs in its last 156 innings.
*Baylor has hit 138 home runs in 167 games under Rodriguez. BU hit 51 in 2017 for its most homers since 2010 (57) and hit 54 in 2018. The Bears hit 50 or more homers in back-to-back seasons for the first time since 2009 (73) and 2010 (57).
*Baylor had 15 multi-home run games in 2018, the most in a single year under Rodriguez (nine in 2016, 14 in 2017).
*Shea Langeliers as a season-high 13-game on-base streak and season-high seven-game hitting streak.
*Langeliers’ seventh-inning home run was his 11th of the season, setting a career high.
*Josh Bissonette has a seven-game on-base streak and three-game hitting streak.
*Alex Phillips threw a career-high 5.2 innings in relief.
STAT OF THE GAME
5.2 – The amount of scoreless innings Alex Phillips pitched in relief.
QUOTE OF THE GAME
“Stanford is the No. 2 team in the country for a reason. [They’re] a very talented team. They took some of our mistakes and beat them up in the first couple of innings. Alex Phillips did everything he could to minimize the rest of the game and he did a phenomenal job of that. Even right now, I still think we have a chance to win that game. I thought we were in it the whole time. I really liked what I was seeing, they just kept making great plays.” -- Baylor Head Coach Steve Rodriguez.
