Arizona baseball recap: Wildcats drop series opener to Stanford 3-2

The Arizona Wildcats lost their fourth consecutive conference game on Thursday night, and the third straight week this team lost on a Thursday. In Palo Alto, the Stanford Cardinal came back for a 3-2 victory to open the three-game set.

Arizona is now 9-10 in Pac-12 play. Stanford improves to 9-7 against conference foes.

U of A got on the board right away. After a pair of singles put runners on the corners, Jared Oliva hit a sac fly to center to score Cal Stevenson, giving the Wildcats a 1-0 lead.

The lead doubled in the top of the fourth. Cesar Salazar appeared to have grounded into a double play, but the throw to first got away, allowing the Arizona catcher to reach base and advance to second.

This brought Louis Boyd up with two outs, and he delivered an RBI single to center, scoring Salazar from second.

Cameron Ming allowed his first run of the game in the bottom half of the inning when Brandon Wulff hit a solo home run to left center on the eighth pitch of his at bat.

Ming did a solid job taking on the first starter role this week, scattering six hits and a walk over 6 ¹⁄₃ innings.

But it was that bottom of the seventh that would sink Arizona at Sunken Diamond.

Ming should have had two quick outs, but a throwing error by Nick Quintana allowed Wulff to reach base. This was followed by back-to-back doubles, quickly putting the Cardinal up 3-2.

That’s when Michael Flynn came to the mound. He finished the game with a scoreless 1 ²⁄₃ innings, but the offense was unable to get anything going to get Ming off the hook for the loss. The Cardinal never had a lead-off hitter reach base in this one.

The game ended when Boyd took off from first before Stanford closer Colton Hock delivered the pitch to home plate. Hock turned around, got Boyd at second, and finished off the six-out save.

Arizona and Stanford meet again on Friday at 7 PM PT. The game will be broadcast on Pac-12 Networks. It’s unclear who the Wildcats will have on the mound. The Cardinal are expected to throw LHP Andrew Summerville.