Arizona State hosts Oregon State and lethal pitching staff

(Photo: Joseph Plishka/WCSN)

Arizona State baseball enters its series against Oregon State, coming off one of its worst losses of the season. On Wednesday, the Sun Devils received a 20-0 beatdown at the hands of archival Arizona, but things are still looking positive for ASU as a whole.

The Sun Devils have been one of college baseball’s best teams so far in 2023. ASU sits alone atop the Pac-12 with a conference record of 11-3 and has won 19 of their last 23 games. This stretch of solid baseball has launched ASU all the way to No. 19 in the most recent D1 Baseball rankings.

Although ASU is on top of the Pac-12 standings, the first half of conference play has been extraordinarily kind to the Sun Devils. All five of ASU’s Pac-12 opponents this season occupy the bottom five standings in the conference.

Starting with No. 21 Oregon State this weekend, the Sun Devils will begin a stretch of five straight weekends where they will play teams that either are currently ranked or have been ranked this year, and all five are looking to take ASU’s place at the top of the Pac-12.

Oregon State entered 2023 knowing they were losing a lot of talent. The team was coming off of a disappointing postseason that saw the third overall-seeded Beavers’ season come up short in the super regionals. On top of that, Oregon State was losing established stars like Cooper Hjerpe, Justin Boyd, Jacob Melton, and Wade Meckler to the MLB draft.

Losing that much talent is hard to replace, and, to open the season, the Beavers struggled, going 12-8 to start the season, including series losses to Washington State and Stanford to open Pac-12 play. Since then, however, the Beavers have won 13 of their last 16 games, taking a series over rival Oregon and sweeping then-No. 22 USC.

As it always is with Oregon State, the strength of this year’s team has been the pitching staff. Despite losing the best pitcher in the country Cooper Hjerpe, the Oregon State staff is better than ever. The team’s 3.14 ERA not only ranks at the top of the Pac-12 but ranks second in the entire country. The Beavers also lead the conference in strikeouts with 347, and their 19 home runs allowed is the fewest in the Pac-12.

Simply put, the Beavers’ rotation is by far the best ASU has faced all year, and they present a tough fitness test for the dangerous Sun Devil lineup.

Leading the weekend rotation for the Beavers is Trent Sellers. The senior right-handed pitcher began his college career at Washington State before transferring to NAIA school Lewis and Clark right next to Oregon State in Portland. Sellers dominated at Lewis and Clark, winning the 2022 Cascade Conference Pitcher of the Year and earning 2022 NAIA Second-Team All-American honors.

Sellers transferred to Oregon State this past offseason and has become the team’s Friday night ace. So far this season, the Washington native’s 74 strikeouts rank second in the conference and eighth in the country, and the Beavers have been successful with Sellers out on the mound as his five wins lead the Pac-12.

While Sellers is the Beaver’s ace, his ERA comes second to the teams’ Saturday starter. Sophomore righty Jacob Kmatz entered is coming off of a freshman season that earned him Freshman All-American honors, and, so far in 2023, he has just gotten better. Kamtz’s 3.64 ERA leads the team and ranks sixth in the Pac-12, while his four-pitch mix has struck out 44 batters over 47 innings pitched.

Over the last two weeks, Sundays have seen the Beavers take a unique approach to their starting pitching, electing to use a bullpen game, and it has been effective. A pair of juniors, Jaren Hunter and Aj Lattery, has quickly become a dangerous duo on Sundays. The two right-handed pitchers have teamed up to get the Beavers through the first six innings, with Hunter usually throwing the first one or two innings before Lattery takes over the next four.

Although the Beavers have only used Hunter as an opener for the past two weeks, the strategy has seen great results. Over 11 combined innings, Hunter and Lattery have allowed one earned run and only two hits, striking out 11 and walking five.

The Oregon State Bullpen is led by redshirt sophomore Ryan Brown. The righty was a freshman All-American last season, and he has carried over his excellent performance to 2023. So far this season, the Oregon native has a 0.49 ERA in 18.1 innings pitched, throwing 14 strikeouts and only three walks. His seven saves to lead the conference, and he has surrendered only a single earned run all season.

The Oregon State rotation is the main concern for the Sun Devils this weekend, but the lineup is still solid and excels in getting walked. The Beavers have been by far the best team in the Pac-12 at drawing walks, and their 209 bases on balls lead the next closest team, UCLA, by 30.

ASU head coach Willie Bloomquist has harped on his team’s inability to limit the free base, leading to the third most walks in the Pac-12 so far in 2023. This weekend the Sun Devils will have to be even more focused on keeping the Beavers off of the bases.

As long as the Sun Devils are able to limit the free base, the Oregon State offense doesn’t present a very dangerous lineup. While they lead the conference in walks, the Beavers also lead the conference in strikeouts with 325. Plus, Oregon State ranks in the bottom half of the conference in batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage.

The Beavers present the toughest challenge the Sun Devils have faced all year, and, coming off of its worst loss of the season, the ASU offense will have to return to form against the best pitching staff in the Pac-12. If they are able to scratch runs across, the ASU pitching staff will have to limit the free passes and take advantage of the Beavers’ high strikeout rate.