Diamond Dawgs Visit Silicon Valley, Take on No. 9 Stanford

Friday, April 21

Stanford, CA

6:05 PM

University of Washington

Stanford

Diamond Dawgs Visit Silicon Valley, Take on No. 9 Stanford

April 20, 2023 | Baseball

UW Notes

STANFORD, Calif. – Washington baseball hits the Bay Area looking to bolster its resume against a top-10 foe, battling No. 9 Stanford at Sunken Diamond in a three-game series.

Friday and Sunday's games will stream on Stanford Live Stream, while Saturday's affair will be available on Stanford Live Stream 2. Links to live stats are available on the GoHuskies.com schedule page and at HuskyStats.com.

DAWG BITES
• Washington hits the road to take on its second top-10 foe of the season at No. 9 Stanford.
• Earlier in the season, the Huskies took 2-of-3 games at No. 7 UCLA. The Dawgs are 3-2 against ranked opponents this season.
• Washington has won two of the last three series against the Cardinal, including taking 2-of-3 games in Seattle against No. 6 Stanford last season.
• Stanford sits second in the Pac-12 standings with a 11-4 league record, while Washington is in seventh at 7-7 in Pac-12 play.
• Cam Clayton is batting .410 in Pac-12 play, the second highest average in the conference.
• Clayton, AJ Guerrero and Jeter Ybarra are all batting over .300 in Pac-12 action.
• Stu Flesland III matched his career high with 7.0 innings in Friday's win over Arizona State. Flesland has given the Huskies length all season, going at least 6.0 innings in 6-of-9 appearances.

SERIES HISTORY VS. STANFORD
Built largely on a dominant streak during the early years of the matchup, Stanford owns a 61-33 advantage in the all-time series against the Huskies, including 35-12 in the Bay Area. Washington has taken two of the last three series against the Cardinal, all against top-10 Stanford sides, including taking two of three games at Husky Ballpark last season. UW is seeking its first series win at Stanford since sweeping the Cardinal in 2015.

HITTING HIS STRIDE
Cam Clayton has registered at least one hit in six straight games, including multiple knocks in each of the Huskies' last four contests, raising his batting average 28 points during the stretch. Clayton is tied with Will Simpson for the team lead with 14 multi-hit games, pacing the Dawgs with five games with three-plus knocks.

LEADER IN THE CLUBHOUSE
Will Simpson leads the Pac-12 and ranks 30th in the nation with 13 home runs this season. The 13 big flies is a career high for the Husky slugger and the most by a UW player since Joe Wainhouse's 19 in 2018. Simpson has slugged 31 homers in his career, seventh most in program history. The Huskies are 9-3 this season when Simpson goes deep. The slugger has failed to homer in his last four games, tied for his longest such stretch of the season.

AJ'S A-OKAY
AJ Guerrero is riding a 10-game hitting streak, his double-digit streak of the season. Guerrero has recorded at least one base knock in 25 of the last 29 games. During those 29 games, Guerrero has posted 11 multi-hit outings.

JOHNNY ROCKETS
Johnny Tincher has thrown out 10-of-21 runners attempting to steal a base this season, good for a 47.6 percent success rate. Tincher's 10 runners thrown out is the second most in the Pac-12, despite only having the 11th most steal attempts against him in the conference. Tincher's success rate is up from 10-of-41 a season ago, a 24.4 percent clip.

CASE CLOSED
When righty flamethrower Case Matter is summoned from the Husky bullpen, a Washington victory is nearly a matter of fact. The UW closer has made nine straight appearances without allowing a run, totaling 11.1 innings. During the stretch, Matter has struck out 15 batters, while issuing just three hits. Matter has earned four saves this season, sixth most in the Pac-12.

STRIKE EARLY
The Huskies have gotten off to strong starts to games, scoring 37 first inning runs in 2023. Washington has outscored its opponents 70-30 in the first two innings of games.

KEEPING IT CLEAN
Washington continues to boast the Pac-12's top defense. The Huskies lead the conference and rank 24th in the nation with a .979 fielding percentage, also ranking second in the Pac-12 with 0.77 double plays per game.

STARTING STRONG
The Dawgs have gotten off to fast starts to innings, having the leadoff hitter to a frame reach 44.3 percent of the time. Six different Huskies are reaching base at least half the time when leading off an inning. 64 of the 118 leadoff baserunners have come around to score.

ON THE CLOCK
20 of Washington's games this season have been completed in under three hours, including six games completed in under two and a half hours.

STOCK UP
The Huskies are on the rise in D1Baseball's positional rankings, with several Washington players making big strides:

UW in D1Baseball's Updated Position Rankings
Kiefer Lord - Starting Pitcher - No. 100 to No. 27 (+73)
Stu Flesland III - Starting Pitcher - No. 166 to No. 41 (+125)
Josh Emanuels - Relief Pitcher - Unranked to No. 44
Will Simpson - First Baseman - Unranked to No. 22
Cam Clayton - Shortstop - Unranked to No. 18

CHIEF KIEF
Throwing six perfect innings with 10 strikeouts against Northern Colorado, Kiefer Lord was named the Week 3 Perfect Game National Pitcher of the Week and Pac-12 Pitcher of the Week. The righty hurler was the first Husky to earn a national pitching award since Joe DeMers in 2018 and the first Husky pitcher to earn a Pac-12 weekly award since Josh Burgmann in 2019.

THAT'S OFFENSIVE
The Dawgs put up astonishing numbers during their four-game series with Northern Colorado. Most notably was the school-record 32 runs scored in the series opener. Those 32 runs are the second most scored by one team in an NCAA Division I game this season (William & Mary, 33 runs). The Huskies outscored the Bears 57-12 for the series, batting .388 as a team with 15 doubles, six home runs, 51 RBIs, 26 walks, 16 HBPs and a .513 team on-base percentage.

HOMEGROWN DAWGS
Nearly half of the Husky roster, 19 of 39 players overall, are homegrown talents from the state of Washington. Of those 19 local products, 16 hail from the greater Seattle Metropolitan area. Below is a breakdown of the counties UW's Washington natives call home.

UW Washington Natives by County
King County - 14
Clark County - 2
Pierce County - 1
Snohomish County - 1
Spokane County - 1

HEEEEEEERE'S JOHNNY
After earning All-Pac-12 and Pac-12 All-Defensive Team honors in 2022, Washington catcher Johnny Tincher was named to the Preseason All-Pac-12 team as voted on by the conference's head coaches.

A redshirt junior, Tincher enters his fourth season at UW coming off of a campaign in which he ranked second on the team with a .314 average. He drove in 35 runs and scored 27 more while posting 19 extra-base hits, including 13 doubles, five home runs and a triple. Defensively, Tincher threw out 10 of 31 runners attempting to swipe a bag last season, while garnering a .989 fielding percentage.

RUN IT BACK
Washington returns nearly the entirety of its offense from the 2022 season with seven of eight positional starters returning that started more than 40 games, the Dawgs are poised once again to put up big numbers on the scoreboard.

Percentage Return from 2022
• Games Started - 88.5%
• Runs - 87.7%
• Hits - 91.4%
• Doubles - 92.3%
• Triples - 87.5%
• Home Runs - 93.8%
• RBIs - 90.9%
• Walks - 82.5%

THE JUCO JUMP
Washington has 10 junior college products on its roster. Four players come from the Washington Community and Technical Colleges system, with four California Community College system products and two players from Arizona's Maricopa County Community College District.

15 GAMES TO AIR ON PAC-12 FAMILY OF NETWORKS
15 Washington baseball games have been selected to air across the Pac-12 family of networks this season. Six home games from Husky Ballpark will air on your television set, while nine road games are set to be broadcasted. Of the 15 TV games for the Dawgs, 10 will air on Pac-12 Washington.

2018 OMADAWGS
2023 marks the five-year anniversary of Washington's 2018 team that became the first squad in program-history to reach the College World Series. The Huskies ran through the Conway Regional, sweeping three games against UConn and host Coastal Carolina. UW then took a decisive Super Regional Game 3 at Cal State Fullerton, erasing a one-run deficit in the ninth to force extras and walking off the Titans on Kaiser Weiss' sacrifice fly to score Levi Jordan and send the Dawgs to Omaha.

For more information on the UW baseball team, follow @UW_Baseball on Twitter and Instagram.