Feb. 29, 2012

Release
Check Back Later This Week for Interviews with Mooneyham and Kauppila
USA Today on Stanford's Schedule | ESPN Power Rankings

The No. 1-ranked Cardinal (8-0) following its 5-1 victory over UC Davis on Tuesday, will embark on its longest out of Pac-12 road trip, at Fresno State (4-5) for a three-game series on Friday and Saturday at 6 p.m. and Sunday at 1 p.m. The Cardinal have outscored opponents 77-26 over its first eight games, which has included six wins over top-10 teams. The Cardinal are batting .331 as a team as Jake Stewart leads the club with a .412 and two leadoff homers and Stephen Piscotty has a team-high 19 RBIs and a .270 average.

Stanford in the Rankings
• Stanford moved up to No. 1 in the USA Today/Coaches poll and remained at No. 2 in Baseball America and No. 3 in Collegiate Baseball. It is the first time since 2004 that the Cardinal have been ranked No. 1. Since 1987, when Stanford finished the year at No. 1 after winning the first of two CWS titles, the Cardinal have been ranked No. 1 at one point during the year in 12 of the last 25 seasons, 10 during the regular season and at the end of the 1987 and 1988 championship seasons.

About the Bulldogs
(Bat: .253, Pitch: 3.42, Field: .957)
• The Bulldogs (4-5) are coming off a Tuesday loss to UC Santa Barbara after dropping a weekend series to Pepperdine and taking three of four from Butler to begin the year. Mike Batesole’s club is coming off a 40-16 record last year and are the preseason favorites in the WAC behind two of the conference’s top sophomores OF Aaron Judge (.226 to start the year) and LHP Tyler Linehan (19 strikeouts in 15.1 innings).  Daniel Moltrie (.440) has the team’s top average in the early season.

Weekend Matchup
Stanford will send to the hill preseason All-American RHP Mark Appel (2-0, 1.29) on Friday, fourth-year junior LHP Brett Mooneyham (2-0, 2.57) on Saturday and likely freshman LHP John Hochstatter (2-0, 0.71) on Sunday. Fresno State will counter with LHP Tyler Linehan (1-1, 0.59), RHP Cody Kendall (1-0, 4.50) and LHP Thomas Harlan (1-1, 0.71).

Cardinal Beat UC Davis
In its first game at No. 1, Stephen Piscotty drove in three runs and Dean McArdle (1-0) won his 13th career game after 2.2 shutout innings in a 5-1 win over UC Davis. Jake Stewart led off his second game of the season with a leadoff home run as part of a two-hit night.