Part of Stanford’s rich baseball tradition has been its consistency. In the 13 previous seasons, the Cardinal qualified for a NCAA Regional every single year. However, it was the 2007 team’s inconsistency in the middle of the season that lost the Cardinal a 14th straight postseason berth.

Without an impressive late-season surge, things could have been far worse. The Cardinal (28-28, 9-15 Pacific-10 Conference) rallied to win nine of its last 10 and avoid the distinction of becoming the first losing squad at Stanford since 1993.

The winning streak culminated in a road sweep of Southern California that pulled Stanford out of the Pac-10 cellar.

“The memory I’m going to take away is how we kind of overcame all the adversity we faced,” junior reliever David Stringer said. “I heard that this is one of the worst team records in 30 years, and that’s kind of hard to take, but towards the end, the offense especially, really came together. It speaks a lot to the quality of the team and the caliber of the players that we were able to come back to .500 from such a deficit.”

In the first three weekends, Stanford started the season with two tough series at perennial powers Cal State-Fullerton and Texas. Coming out of that gauntlet 5-4, the Cardinal then strung together an eight-game win streak, improving to 9-0 at Sunken Diamond in the process.

Stanford ended its streak by becoming just the fifth program to win 2500 games in a non-conference weekend sweep of California.

“It speaks volumes to the expectations we have as a program,” head coach Mark Marquess said. “To be consistent and have a winning tradition over a number of years is quite an accomplishment that’s a credit to the people that have played here.”

After the win, Stanford went into a 30-game slump it could not shake. The Cardinal went just 9-21 over the period, and the pitching staff — whose season-ending 6.01 ERA is the worst in Stanford baseball’s 50 years of recorded history — ballooned up to 7.90.

The problems were not confined to the mound either. Stanford’s 82 errors on the season led the Pac-10, and the team simply could not get the big hit when it needed it most. Not surprisingly then, Stanford lost its first six Pac-10 series of the year.

“It’s unfortunate we were unable to break the bad streak of luck we had for a month and a half or so,” junior pitcher Erik Davis said. “It’s the worst we’ve pitched probably ever. That’s pretty depressing especially for me, because I didn’t do a very good job of setting tone for our younger guys.”

“The problems would vary from week to week,” Marquess added. “Sometimes we’d walk a lot of people, other times we’d give up a lot of hits or get behind in counts. As crazy as it sounds when we started slowly — especially the older guys — I think they were conscientious and wanted to do well so badly that they pressed too much and then it mushroomed for us.”

At the end of the slide, Stanford started to make improvements at the plate. Junior Michael Taylor (.335, 59 RBI, 12 HR) solidified his spot on the All Pac-10 team with a second-half surge that kicked off with a walk-off home run against defending champion Oregon State, in a 9-7, extra-inning win on Apr. 28.

“Anytime you’re recognized for your accomplishments on the field, it feels good,” Taylor said. “This is a very tough league to play in with a lot of great players who’ve been through it. To step into ‘the class’ of those players, not only for Stanford, but for the Pac-10, is meaningful.”

Recovering from shoulder surgery, junior Adam Sorgi (.375, 27 RBI) led the team in batting average from his adopted position of second base to also earn All-Pac-10 honors. Stanford’s final all-conference player — sophomore centerfielder Sean Ratliff (.339, 45 RBI, 12 HR) — continued his breakout season, his first as an everyday player.

As a team, the Cardinal would hit .305 on the season, its highest average since 2004.

“We have all kinds of offensive talent,” Taylor said. “I forget what our average was, but we raised it 25 to 30 points in four or five weeks, which is something that’s very difficult to do. You saw guys come into their own, like Ratliff with his monster year, and that improved throughout the year, like [sophomores] Brent Milleville, Cord Phelps and Joey August.”

The Cardinal’s late-season surge would not have been possible without some timely pitching as well. Stringer provided key, long-relief appearances against Santa Clara (7 IP, 7 H, 0 ER) and UC-Davis (5.2 IP, 3 H, 0 ER) for crucial wins.

Erik Davis (4-2), a late-season addition to the rotation after recovering from a line drive that struck his face last summer, became the Stanford Sunday starter and tied for the team lead with four victories. He yielded only four earned runs in 20.2 innings over three games, and even earned national attention with Mark Kreidler writing a story for ESPN.com.

During the final, 10-game stretch, Stanford’s two highlights were a 13-inning win against UC-Davis, where the Cardinal pulled to a tie in the ninth on a wild pitch and then rewarded Stringer’s scoreless relief with an RBI-drag bunt single from Ratliff. Senior Ryan Seawell then ended his career with fireworks and pushed Stanford’s extra-innings record to 4-0 with a game-winning, three-run home run in the series opener against USC.

Next year’s Stanford team will lose senior Seawell to graduation and potentially Taylor, [junior] Nolan Gallagher, Sorgi, Davis and [junior] Brian Juhl to the 2007 Major League Baseball Draft. All indications are that Taylor, ranked the 100th best player in the draft by ESPN’s Keith Law, will be the first Stanford player chosen.

At the top of the Cardinal’s recruiting class for next year is left-handed pitcher Jack McGeary. The Gatorade Massachusetts Player of the Year pitched high school ball at Roxbury Latin in the Boston area. According to the Boston Herald, McGeary is the sixth-ranked high-school player in the nation, and though there is some concern he may attend if drafted high enough, Marquess is confident that McGeary is “academic” and “wants to come to school.”