STANFORD, Calif. - It's unfortunate that Stanford baseball's 2019 NCAA postseason journey does not include a game on June 7.
For as long as the records go back in Stanford baseball history, the Cardinal has never lost on the June 7 date. Six times on a June 7—paralleling, ironically, the 6/7 calendar notation—Stanford has played a baseball game, and each time the Cardinal has emerged victorious. In fact, June 7 is the only date on the calendar on which Stanford has played multiple years' worth of games and still remains undefeated.
What is even more remarkable is that each of the six June 7 victories—all occurring during the 41-year tenure of former Cardinal head coach Mark Marquess—stands among the most memorable in Stanford history. The list includes a College World Series championship game win, two NCAA Super Regional championship game victories, a Super Regional win by a Stanford Hall of Fame pitcher on a never-before-seen hot streak, and two dramatic walk-off wins that kept Stanford alive in two separate and deep NCAA postseason runs.
Here is a summary of the six very memorable Stanford baseball victories on June 7 through the years.
June 7, 1987 • Stanford 9, Oklahoma State 5
College World Series • Omaha, Neb.
On a Sunday night at the old Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha, the Cardinal had a chance to do what it had never done before—win the NCAA baseball championship at the annual, eight-team, double-elimination College World Series (CWS). The 1987 CWS title game opponent was Oklahoma State, a powerful hitting team led by future major league player Robin Ventura.
To get to the championship game, Stanford had to get through five games in the prior eight days in Omaha, recovering from a loss to Oklahoma State in its third Omaha game to win the ensuing two elimination games and earn a rematch with the Cowboys in the championship game. The first of the elimination games had an especially dramatic ending.
Down three runs to LSU going into the bottom of the ninth inning, Stanford with one out loaded the bases on a Ruben Amaro walk, a Toi Cook walk and Ed Sprague being hit by a pitch. The next batter, freshman designated hitter Paul Carey, smashed a 1-1 fastball from LSU pitcher Ben McDonald over the fence for a walk-off grand slam home-run, keeping the Cardinal's CWS title hopes alive. Carey's game-winning CWS slam still stands as perhaps the most iconic video highlight in Stanford baseball history.
Following a 9-3 win in the next game, a matchup with Texas in the CWS semifinal, Coach Marquess turned to All-American pitcher Jack McDowell for the June 7 title game starting assignment. Having started two CWS games in the prior eight days, McDowell marshaled his available arm strength and pitched with grit, finding a way with a tired arm to hold the powerful-hitting Cowboys to four runs over seven innings as the Cardinal built a 6-4 lead.
In the eighth inning, Stanford faced a game-threatening challenge. With the score still 6-4, McDowell walked the first two Oklahoma State batters and was spent. Marquess thereupon summoned sophomore closer Steve Chitren, who promptly struck out the next two hitters but then hit the next batter to load the bases. Facing the dangerous Ray Ortiz with the tying run in scoring position, Chitren was equal to the challenge. The right-hander blew away Ortiz on just three pitches to end the threat and preserve the two-run Stanford lead.
"I was dead," McDowell said of his duty-calls, last-ever Cardinal appearance. "I was just trying to gut it out. I had put so much into every pitch that I was having trouble with location tonight. After I walked those two guys in the eighth, I needed help. Steve Chitren picked me up big time."
The Cardinal added three insurance runs in the top of the ninth inning to increase its lead to five runs. In the bottom of the ninth, Chitren gave up a run but otherwise secured the necessary three outs—the last one on a bouncer back to the mound—to give Stanford a 9-5 victory and its first ever NCAA baseball championship.
"Chitren was phenomenal," said Marquess during the postgame press conference that took place during the final hour of a long but joyous June 7 evening. "Everybody contributed all year. We have an MVP award we give every year, and this year's MVP is going to be the team."
Incidentally but not insignificantly, one of the celebrating Stanford players in the postgame dogpile on the Rosenblatt Stadium mound was senior starting shortstop David Esquer, now in his second year as the program's head coach. Esquer was one of three Cardinal players named to the 11-man 1987 CWS All-Tournament team after hitting .350 with six runs batted in—including two in the championship game—during Stanford's victorious week in Omaha.
June 7, 1988 • Stanford 2, Miami 1
College World Series • Omaha, Neb.
Entering the 1988 NCAA Tournament as the defending national champion, Stanford was sent east as a No. 2 seed to the Northeast Regional in New Britain, Conn., one of eight regional sites nationwide. The format was new, with six teams instead of four as in past years, but the same two-loss-elimination and CWS-berth-for-the-winner features applied as previously. Despite losing the first game of the regional to St. John's, the Cardinal thereafter won four elimination games—two of them thanks to more Chitren late-inning relief pitching heroics—over the span of five days to earn a return trip to the CWS.
At Rosenblatt Stadium, Stanford got off to a good start, pounding Fresno State 10-3 in its opening game. But two nights later, the Cardinal struck out—literally—as Cal State Fullerton right-hander Mark Beck whiffed 13 Stanford batters in a 5-2 Stanford loss. The defeat sent Stanford into a loser's bracket, June 7 game versus a 52-win University of Miami squad.
The Hurricanes were a pitching-and-defense specializing team, and that reputation was abundantly evident at Rosenblatt Stadium that evening. Miami held the Cardinal scoreless through the first five innings through a combination of starter Will Vespe's sterling pitching and two sparkling catches by centerfielder John Vierra.
In the top of the sixth inning, Vierra homered off Stanford freshman right-hander Stan Spencer to give the Hurricanes a 1-0 lead, but Paul Carey's solo homer in the bottom of the inning tied the score at 1-1. The score stayed that way until the bottom of the ninth inning.
Senior catcher Doug Robbins led off the ninth for Stanford with an infield single. After a sacrifice bunt and a walk, senior Jeff Saenger was summoned as a pinch hitter. Saenger hit a potential inning ending double-play grounder to Miami second baseman Jose Trujillo, so reliable a fielder that he had committed only six errors in sixty previous games that season.
Trujillo easily fielded the grounder, but his throw toward second base skipped past the shortstop and rolled toward the left field foul line, far away from any Miami fielder. Robbins was chugging toward third base on the play and had not seen what had happened. Suddenly Robbins spotted Stanford third base coach Dean Stotz, who was jumping up and down and whose right arm was wind-milling the word "go" more emphatically than vocal cords ever could.
Seeing Stotz's "go" signal and realizing he had a chance to score, Robbins charged past third and, with both arms flailing joyously skyward, raced toward home plate. With his teammates exploding out of the dugout in celebration, Robbins crossed home plate with the game-winning run, giving the Cardinal a 2-1 walk-off victory. The June 7 win became the first of four elimination games the Cardinal would win over five days in Omaha to claim the 1988 College World Series and a second consecutive NCAA crown.
June 7, 2002 • Stanford 4, USC 2
NCAA Super Regional • Stanford, Calif.
In the first game of the 2002 Super Regional—the best-of-three game series format to which each of the first weekend's 16 winners advance under the current NCAA regional playoff format—Stanford faced USC at Sunken Diamond. The amazing story in this game was not the outcome so much as it was the performance of Stanford's starting pitcher that evening, Jeremy Guthrie.
The junior right-hander came into the game with five wins in his five prior starts, including a 13-inning, 144-pitch complete game win just seven days earlier in a regional 3-2 playoff win over Cal State Fullerton at Sunken Diamond. Guthrie was in the midst of an incredible, six-complete-games-in-nine-starts display of pitching excellence—a stretch of starts Mark Marquess has long cited as the greatest period of pitching dominance he had seen in his 41 years as Stanford's head coach.
On this June 7, Guthrie was at his scoreless-slinging best again, allowing the Trojans no runs through the first seven innings and no hits from the 3rd through the 7th innings. Meanwhile, Stanford picked up three runs midway through the game on a pair of home runs: a two-run homer by sophomore outfielder Carlos Quentin and a solo shot by freshman designated hitter Chris Carter.
Guthrie gave up a one-out single in the eighth inning and then a two-run home run to the next USC batter, reducing USC's game-score deficit to one run. At that point, Marquess—in part to rest Guthrie's arm for the anticipated CWS run games to come—removed his pitcher from the game. It was just the second time in his most recent seven starts that Guthrie did not go the full nine innings. But Guthrie nonetheless got the win, as senior relief pitcher Dan Rich was summoned and got the final five outs to secure the Super Regional-opening win.
One week after having witnessed his ace right-hander throw the 13-inning complete game victory over Cal State Fullerton in the NCAA Regional opener, Marquess praised Guthrie's win over USC as similarly dominant: "I thought Jeremy was [even] sharper than he was last week," said Marquess following Guthrie's four-hit mastery of the Trojans.
For Jeremy Guthrie, a transfer from BYU who would play just two seasons on the Farm, the win was his 16th in 17 career decisions at Sunken Diamond—as impressive a "home" pitching record as has ever been produced.
Because of Guthrie's performance, Stanford had taken an important first step toward obtaining its eventual berth in the 2002 CWS. In his final home game as a Stanford pitcher on that June 7—just days after having been selected as a first-round draft choice of the Cleveland Indians, and just days before being named first team All-America for 2002—Jeremy Guthrie truly cemented his place among the best Stanford pitchers of all time.
June 7, 2003 • Stanford 4, Long Beach State 2
NCAA Super Regional • Stanford, Calif.
As had been the case in 2002, the Cardinal found itself in a Super Regional game at Sunken Diamond. But on this June 7, one year later, even more was on the line: a Super Regional championship, a 15th Stanford trip to the College World Series and the 100th career postseason coaching win for head coach Mark Marquess. All could be obtained if the Cardinal could win the second game of the 2003 Super Regional against Long Beach State, with Stanford already leading the series 1-0.
The Stanford star at the plate on this June 7 evening was sophomore outfielder Danny Putnam, whose Cardinal uniform number happened to be No. 7. Perhaps not surprisingly also, the seventh inning was the inning in which Putnam displayed his difference-making bat.
Stanford had been trailing 2-1 going into the seventh inning. Long Beach State starter Jered Weaver retired the first two Stanford hitters in the inning, but then the Cardinal rallied. Junior centerfielder Sam Fuld reached base following an error by 49er shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, stole second and then scored on a single by junior Johnny Ash to tie the game, 2-2. Carlos Quentin then got his fourth hit of the night, sending Ash to second. The next hitter, Ryan Garko, walked to load the bases.
Next up for Stanford was Putnam, who was in the midst of one of the great postseason hitting performances in Cardinal history. The sophomore had hit three home runs and had driven in 10 runs in the Cardinal's three prior NCAA playoff games.
Putnam was equal to the seventh-inning challenge on this night. He promptly stroked a single to right field off Weaver to score Ash and Quentin and put Stanford in front by a score of 4-2. And, thanks to clutch Cardinal pitching in the final two innings, the 4-2 margin stood up. Closer Matt Manship recorded the game's final out, catapulting the Stanford players out of the dugout and onto the field to celebrate another NCAA Super Regional victory and CWS berth.
The winning pitcher for Stanford was freshman All-American Mark Romanczuk, who pitched 8 1/3 innings and allowed only two runs. With his June 7 victory in the Super Regional finale, the frosh left-hander upped his win-loss record to a perfect 12-0.
June 7, 2008 • Stanford 8, Cal State Fullerton 5
NCAA Super Regional • Fullerton, Calif.
The fifth-ever Stanford baseball game on a June 7 produced yet another memorable performance—for several "fresh" reasons.
First, it was a win that sent Stanford to the College World Series for the 16th time in school history. Second, it was a Stanford team that had not expected to go to Omaha. "No one expected us to do much this year," said Mark Marquess after what would turn out to be another Super Regional championship game win. And third, a couple of unforeseen contributors, both freshmen, were the keys to the Cardinal victory.
Going into the sixth inning, the game was tied 5-5. With one out and two Cardinal runners on base, freshman second baseman Colin Walsh—an emergency starter due to the sudden illness of regular second baseman Cord Phelps—got his second hit of the game to load the bases. One out later, Cardinal catcher Jason Castro drilled a bases-clearing double to give Stanford an 8-5 lead. On the play, Walsh scored his third run of the game.
The score was still 8-5 when Fullerton mounted a threat in the bottom of the eighth inning, getting a runner to second base after two outs. At this point, Marquess called on another freshman, closer Drew Storen, to replace Austin Yount on the mound.
Storen got the final out in the eighth inning, striking out Fullerton slugger Jared Clark. The Cardinal failed to score in the top of the ninth inning, and the freshman returned to the mound in the bottom of the ninth in hopes of obtaining the biggest save of his young baseball career.
Storen struck out the first Fullerton batter, but then walked the next batter, star outfielder Gary Brown. The Cardinal right-hander, however, induced the next Titan batter to hit a ground ball to yet another Stanford freshman—shortstop Jake Schlander—who started a game-ending double play by throwing to Walsh at second base to force out Brown, with Walsh then whirling and firing to first baseman Brent Milleville to record the game's final out.
It was an amazing, frosh-finish-with-a-flourish ending on a June 7. And it sent the Cardinal team into celebration mode yet again, having secured the program's 14th trip to Omaha in 27 seasons, and a berth in the 2008 College World Series.
June 7, 2014 • Stanford 5, Vanderbilt 4
NCAA Super Regional • Nashville, Tenn.
For yet another time in its storied baseball history, whether in the final month of the regular season or in postseason play, Stanford was faced with a "must-win" game to keep its season alive. The Cardinal was down 1-0 in games to the Vanderbilt Commodores in the best-of-three Super Regional and needed a June 7 win to even the series and avoid elimination.
Mark Marquess turned to his freshman right-hander Cal Quantrill, the Cardinal's No. 1 starting pitcher in 2014 and, as of mid-May and thereafter that season, one of the most dominant pitchers in all of college baseball. On a day during which he would, following the game, take a physics final in a Nashville hotel conference room, Quantrill was primed to ace his baseball exam as well.
The game was a pitcher's duel for seven innings, with Quantrill's Stanford team leading by just one run through six innings against hard-throwing Vanderbilt right-hander Carson Fulmer. Quantrill allowed an unearned run in the second inning, then pitched five brilliant innings of four-hit, five-strikeout baseball.
The Vanderbilt hitters, multiple of whom later would become major league baseball players, were handcuffed by a combination of 90 mph-plus fastballs and well-timed changeups. Only a pitch count into the 100s, two batters into the eighth inning, deprived Quantrill of an opportunity to bring home the victory himself.
Stanford trailed early in the game, 1-0, until catcher Brant Whiting doubled home two runs in the bottom of the fourth inning to give the Cardinal a 2-1 lead. The score remained 2-1 until Stanford extended its lead in the bottom of the seventh. Whiting hit another double, then scored on a Wayne Taylor single to put Stanford ahead, 3-1. After pinch hitter Jack Klein sacrificed Taylor to second, Taylor scored on Brett Michael Doran's single, and the score became 4-1 in favor of Stanford.
Vanderbilt, however, came back against hard-throwing Cardinal reliever A.J. Vanegas. The Commodores scored two runs in the top of eighth inning to cut its deficit to 4-3, and Vandy added one more in the top of the ninth inning to tie the game at 4-4. The packed Hawkins Field crowd was exultant, hoping for an extra-inning win and just the second-ever Vanderbilt ticket to the CWS.
But in the bottom of the ninth inning for Stanford, after Brant Whiting had struck out, Wayne Taylor came to the plate for the Cardinal. Taylor saw a fastball on the third pitch thrown by Commodore reliever Adam Ravenelle and pounded it high…and deep…and OVER the fence in right-center field for a walk-off home run!
With one prodigious swing of Wayne Taylor's bat, Stanford had won the game, 5-4, and had evened the Super Regional series at one game apiece. A full-squad welcoming committee of leaping and screaming Cardinal players joyously engulfed Taylor as he, too, leaped and screamed—onto home plate with the game-clinching run.
It was, indeed, another perfect Stanford baseball ending on a June 7.
Wayne Taylor's uniform number? Why yes, it was No. 7.