The Arizona Wildcats take on the Stanford Cardinal in the Pac-12 Baseball Tournament. Our college baseball odds series has our Arizona Stanford prediction and pick. Find out how to watch Arizona Stanford.
At a tournament, the No. 1 seed usually plays the No. 8 seed in the quarterfinals. In this case, the top seed is playing the No. 8 seed in the semifinals. This is a Pac-12 Tournament semifinal. Stanford is the No. 1 seed and the regular-season Pac-12 baseball champion. Arizona is the surprising lower seed, a team which struggled during the Pac-12 season and finished in the lower half of the conference but has caught fire this week in Scottsdale.
Arizona scored 12 runs in its first game this week on Tuesday versus Arizona State. The Wildcats then returned to the field on Wednesday and beat Oregon State, 13-12, to win their pool in round-robin play and advance to the semifinals. Arizona is red-hot at the plate right now, and that's why the Wildcats — who were an underdog in their first two games this week — are a very dangerous semifinal underdog here.
Stanford was already assured of a berth in the semifinals when it played Oregon on Thursday night, so the fact that the Cardinal lost to the Ducks isn't that much of a cause for alarm. However, the way in which Stanford lost is certainly concerning. The Cardinal led 6-2 after two innings. They led 6-4 after eight innings. They let the game slip away on a throwing error which tied the score at 6-6 with two outs in the top of the ninth. They stranded runners in scoring position in the seventh, eighth, and ninth. They did not play well, and they will need to be better if they are going to win here against a potent underdog.
Here are the Arizona-Stanford College Baseball odds, courtesy of FanDuel.
College Baseball Odds: Arizona-Stanford Odds
Money Line
Arizona: +154
Stanford: -200
How To Watch Arizona vs. Stanford
TV: Pac-12 Network
Stream: Pac-12 Now
Time: 10:00 p.m. ET/7:00 p.m. PT
*Watch Arizona-Stanford LIVE on fuboTV (click for a free trial)*
Why Arizona Could Cover The Spread
The Wildcats are the classic underdog team which is getting hot at the right time. Arizona won two out of three games from USC to end the regular season. The Wildcats then came to the Pac-12 Tournament and have scored a total of 25 runs in their first two games. Arizona has gotten big hits early in games, midway through games, and late in games. Everyone is contributing and the batting order, as a result, has more balance than before.
Stanford is also not playing well at this tournament. The Cardinal gave up 10 runs to ninth-place Cal on Wednesday. Then they blew a 6-2 lead to Oregon on Thursday and committed lots of mistakes in multiple facets of the game: pitching, defense, and hitting. Stanford has been sloppy and has not looked like a team which won the Pac-12 championship in the regular season. Arizona has hit Stanford pitching hard in earlier meetings this season and has a real chance to score big once again.
Why Stanford Could Cover The Spread
The Stanford Cardinal are the Pac-12 champions, so that's a reason to pick them against the eighth-place team in the conference. The other really big reason to pick Stanford is that the Cardinal did not need to win Thursday's game against Oregon. They knew they were already in the semifinal round when they took the field for the game. This is an elimination (knockout) game, so one should expect Stanford to be much sharper than it was against Cal and Oregon. Stanford saved its best pitchers for this game, so the fact that the Cardinal gave up a lot of runs in their first two games this week in Scottsdale should not be viewed as a cause for great concern.
Final Arizona-Stanford Prediction & Pick
The fact that Stanford is finally playing an elimination game this week should give the Cardinal urgency and make the Trees a lot better. Take Stanford.
Final Arizona-Stanford Prediction & Pick: Stanford money line
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