The #12 Texas Longhorns will take on the #2 Standford Cardinal this evening at Klein Field at Sunken Diamond in Palo Alto.  Texas Head Coach Augie Garrido knows this road game series against a good ball club will tell a lot about his team. Stanford boasts a 4-0 record after sweeping Vanderbilt in a 3 game home series and beating Pacific University in extra innings on the road. Texas (2-2) will start sophomore Nathan Thornhill (1-0, 0.00 ERA) on the mound tonight while Stanford will go with junior pitcher and right-hander Mark Appell  (1-0, 1.29 ERA).
Texas looks to get more power hitting from Mark Payton who is leads the team in hitting (.538) with 4 RBI’s which includes 7 hits in 13 at-bats. Notably, 4 of Payton’s 7 hits have been for extra bases. It is still very early in the season but the Longhorns need more contributions from the rest of the batting order, especially if they want success against this Stanford team. Stanford’s Stephen Piscotty, widely considered a top 10 player in the country, leads the Cardinal team with 11 RBI’s. In the last Cardinal game Piscotty hit a two-run homer in the 11th inning to send Stanford past the Pacific Tigers and keeping the Stanford season undefeated.
