David Esquer ponders what happened to Quinn Mathews during 5th inning struggle

Stanford baseball is heading home after posting an 0-2 record in the College World Series. Midway through that second game, the Cardinal led 4-0 before a fifth inning implosion allowed Tennessee to tie the game. The Volunteers broke through in the top of the fifth against starting pitcher Quinn Mathews, getting three singles in four at bats to get the inning started before tallying four runs to tie things up.

Mathews would be relieved after that tide-turning inning but the Vols struck again in the top of the seventh to add another pair of runs. Stanford just couldn’t muster any more offense after that to fall in their final game of the season. Really, it came down to that fourth inning, where head coach David Esquer may have ridden his starter a bit too long.

After the game, Esquer reflected on the pitching performance and what led to the defensive breakdown from his team in the fifth. Here were those comments:

David Esquer talks through Quinn Matthews’ rough day vs. Tennessee

“They just had some really good, tough two-strike at-bats. When they were fouling off pitches — and as you foul off pitches you’re take a little steam. Even if they go down, they’re taking him down a little bit with him. I just think they were able to foul off a few more pitches and stay in the at-bat. And they had some really good two-strike contact up the middle. They made it really tough.

“We felt we owed it to Quinn to let him be in there as long as we could, and he wanted that last batter. And he’s earned it. And we very easily could have gone out of there with zero, one, two, three or four, it seemed like. Every at-bat, they were tacking on another hit in a really tough at-bat.

“But it’s baseball. Like he said, Alberto (Rios) throws that ball maybe a little lower, we get to the plate a little quicker, they don’t get anything that inning. But that’s baseball.

“And they had some really tough at-bats against Quinn. And of course, like I said, (Chase) Burns came in and just threw up a wall there. And the guy’s reaching triple digits every now and then and landing a slider. I don’t think baseball gets any tougher than that. As good as we are, that’s pretty high-level baseball that we were battling.

“And, again, hats off to him because that was just a tremendous pitching performance.”