Arizona State offense strikes early in 9-1 win over Utah Tech

(Photo: Samantha Maxwell/WCSN)

PHOENIX — On Saturday, head coach Willie Bloomquist said Arizona State baseball’s offense needed improvement. Especially with Pac-12 play beginning next weekend, Bloomquist knew the program needed to improve at the plate. Sunday seemed to highlight a sense of urgency that the second-year head coach talked about, and now Tuesday’s offensive explosive amplifies his message.

“Something that we’ve addressed is that we have to do a better job at swinging at strikes and being ready to swing at strikes,” Bloomquist said. “The last two games, it’s been much better, and the results speak for themselves.”

ASU (10-7) scored early and often against Utah Tech (5-13) in its 9-1 win. The Sun Devils lost to Dixie State during its opening series last season in shocking fashion. The club looked to avoid repeating the same result by improving on an area that Bloomquist has harped on all season.

“Swinging strike percentage is a big thing,” Bloomquist said. “I’m not a real big stat guy as far as numbers, but that’s one stat that we do keep track of is percentages of strikes that we swing at, and that’s something we’ve been really, really low at lately.”

Despite the lopsided result, ASU was down early after a tough bounce that passed freshman infielder Nu’u Contrades would allow the early baserunner in scoring position. Utah Tech used some creative baserunning with runners on the corner. Junior infielder Shane Taylor dashed for second, distracting the Sun Devils, while freshman outfielder Brkyer Hurdsman swooped into home plate to give the Trailblazers the 1-0 lead.

That lead would be short-lived as Contrades stepped up in the bottom of the frame to nullify his misplay earlier by launching one over to deep center field. ASU started to get in a rhythm with freshman infielder Luke Hill tacking on another run on an RBI single. Early in his Sun Devils career, Hill has already made a massive impact, especially tonight, extending his hitting streak to seven games.

The Trailblazers tried to stop the bleeding before it was irreversible by bringing in redshirt freshman Ben Clark to strand the runners on first and second. That attempt was quickly squashed by junior infielder Luke Keaschall, who rocketed a moonshot to left field to leave Utah Tech stunned by the quick turnaround.

“[Luke] is outstanding. He puts a lot of pressure on himself to be perfect,” Bloomquist said. “He’s all out every game and wants to do well every game, and we have been working on a couple of minor tweaks to hopefully get him to let the ball travel a little bit.”

Keaschall struggled early in the year and owns up to those shortcomings. To fix those mistakes, he has focused on “mechanical cues” to feel better standing in the box. The adjustment has made Keaschall more comfortable in the box, and he hopes his success in the past two games is the new normal for him.

The onslaught didn’t stop in the third inning, as the next frame saw ASU follow up its five-run outing with another offensive outburst. With two runners on, sophomore catcher Ryan Campos remained on fire at the plate with an RBI double. Campos is riding high on a 10-game hitting streak, with the last four being multi-hit games.

In 2022, Campos had an explosive offensive campaign, being named an All-American, and has been reciprocating that production recently. His fellow All-American teammate, sophomore infielder Jacob Tobias, would follow Campos to bring him and Hill home on a two-run RBI single to bloat the Sun Devils lead 8-1.

“I’m just looking for a good approach to take the fastball the other way,” Tobias said. “Facing a lot of lefties today, I knew that they were going to come with a lot of off-speed. I had to kind of give up being early on that fastball and give up pulling the ball to be able to stay on my slider, which I got a hefty amount.”

Recently, ASU’s pitching has been lights out. Junior right-hander Owen Stevenson got the start on the bump, pitching three innings, but had Trailblazers’ batters whiffing at air in those frames. Stevenson struck out four out of Utah Tech’s first five batters and had complete control of the mound.

The junior right-hander has been one of ASU’s arms fighting for the starting rotation, and tonight he stamped his claim for that spot. However, Stevenson was replaced by left-hander Timmy Manning, who matched his fellow Sun Devils’ stellar performance. The former Gator struck out his first four batters faced and had the Trailblazers searching for answers.

“I thought [Stevenson and Manning] threw outstanding today,” Bloomquist said. “They attacked the zone. Timmy threw his breaking ball for a strike tonight, which was outstanding. Owen attacked with his fastball extremely well.”

Stevenson and Manning combined for 10 strikeouts through the first five innings, displaying dominance on the mound. The duo led an ASU pitching staff that didn’t walk a batter. This is back-to-back games that the Sun Devils haven’t walked a batter, a feat the program didn’t accomplish last season.

“No free bases. Amazing you get good results when you don’t walk, guys,” Bloomquist said. “Pitching staff as a whole did really well.”

After scoring eight runs in that two-inning span, ASU didn’t find much offensive success on the scoreboard. Despite the lack of scoring, Keashchall and the club liked how the lineup was swinging the at-bat and shouldn’t be discouraged by not resulting in runs.

“Honestly, I don’t think it was that bad because we were barrelling the ball up still,” Keaschall said. “It seemed like we were just hitting the ball at people at some points. We weren’t scoring too many runs, but I wouldn’t say our bats fell off.”

The Sun Devils would take on a not needed insurance run in the seventh before closing out the Trailblazers 9-1 to extend the program’s winning streak to four.

“Obviously, nice to win four in a row, but like I said, for me, it’s more about how you go about it every day,” Bloomquist said. “If you go to bat with the right mentality and right attitude and play the game the right way, the wins will follow.”

ASU heads up to Utah to begin conference play this weekend for a three-game series. The past two games have been encouraging signs for both on the mound and at the plate. But, Bloomquist isn’t ready to say the team is where he wants it to be, but he thinks Tuesday’s game was a step in the right direction heading to play the Utes.