Slumping Huskies finish road trip in Palo Alto

Apr 12, 2013, 12:00 AM

Road games have not been kind to the Washington baseball team this season. The Huskies have won just three of 21 out-of-state games in what has been a season to forget for the UW. Thankfully, their season-long 11-game road swing ends this weekend with a three-game set against Pac-12 rival Stanford. After they finish up with the Cardinal, the Huskies play 14 of their final 23 games at Husky Ballpark, beginning with a midweek matchup with Seattle University next Tuesday. The UW’s frustrating trend continued last weekend. After winning the series-opener against Pepperdine, the Huskies dropped the second game, 1-0, in 11 innings. They were beaten in a low-scoring game Sunday, then lost a single game on Monday to Cal State Northridge, in which they blew a six-run lead. This run was amazingly similar to the UW’s previous Pac-12 series against UCLA and Oregon. The Huskies were swept in both, losing one game in extra innings via late comebacks and then being swept twice over the rest of the weekend. After playing a road game Monday, the Huskies have not had the same amount of practice time they normally do. But that doesn’t bother head coach Lindsay Meggs. “It’s been a real short week,” Meggs said. “[Wednesday] was the only real day of practice this week, but it was positive. There was a lot of energy.” Meggs is disappointed by the difficult weekend in Southern California, but he says his team is showing signs of improvement. “Every time we play a game, we want to win, so we’re all disappointed,” Meggs said. “We still have the same positives, we have pitched well, but we haven’t really broken through yet.” Right-hander Jared Fisher will get the ball in Friday’s opener. He will be followed in the rotation by ace Austin Voth, who is 3-4 with a 3.00 ERA this season. Despite allowing just one run over his past two starts, Voth hasn’t gotten wins in either, as the Huskies haven’t scored for him since a 3-1 win over USC on March 23. Sunday’s starter is still to be announced. “Our team has been putting out a lot of effort, but we haven’t gotten the results,” Voth said. “I know there will be a point where the hits and runs will come, but it hasn’t happened yet.” Stanford has not had a great year by its standards, but the Cardinal is 5-4 in Pac-12 play and sitting at fourth in the conference standings. It enters this weekend’s series hot, having won four of its past five, and six of its past eight. Meggs said it will be important for the Huskies to take advantage of whatever opportunities they get against a very good pitching staff. The Cardinal has a team ERA of 2.80 this season and boasts one of the best pitchers in the country, Mark Appel, who has two shutouts. “Stanford is very physical, and they make very few mistakes,” Meggs said. “We have to play good defense and take the opportunities we get. We need to score early, play good defense, and pitch consistently well to win.” Reach reporter Daniel Rubens at sports@dailyuw.com. Twitter: @drubens12

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