(Photo: Joey Plishka/WCSN)
TEMPE – Arizona State Baseball had BYU down to its last strike twice in the ninth inning on Friday night. The Sun Devils were about to follow up a blown lead on Thursday with a shutdown night from the bullpen in the second game of the series against the Cougars.
But then, disaster struck.
Sophomore right-handed pitcher Brock Peery saw the two-run ASU lead disappear with one clean stroke when BYU sophomore shortstop Brock Watkins blasted a bases clearing three-run triple to give BYU the lead and the win. The Sun Devils’ rally in the bottom half was futile, and for the second consecutive night, ASU fell to BYU 6-5 in devastating fashion.
New head coach Willie Bloomquist in his first six games at the helm of the Sun Devils has already had a lot thrown his way, and Friday was arguably the most heartbreaking card he’s been dealt to date.
“I think it’s tough because you want to set an expectation that in games like this, we’re not gonna settle for mediocrity,” Bloomquist said postgame. “Our expectation is to win games like this, not lose. And we have to figure out who are the guys that are gonna step up and get it done when it counts.”
The blunder ended up overshadowing a dominant performance from redshirt junior left-handed pitcher Adam Tulloch.
Tulloch ran into some trouble in the fourth inning when he gave up a two-run double to BYU junior designated hitter Ryan Sepede, but he followed up his first ASU outing on opening night with another solid showing. He was masterful, spinning ASU’s longest outing to date – 6.2 innings – while striking out eight on 106 pitches.
“It felt good,” Tulloch said. “A starting pitcher’s goal is to go six or seven innings and keep your team in the ballgame and I felt like I did that tonight. It’s a tough loss but I felt like I did most of what I could do out there…
“We’ll bounce back, we got a good group of guys. I have 100% belief that we’ll bounce back tomorrow.”
Sophomore right-handed pitcher Jared Glenn followed up Tulloch’s outing with a scoreless appearance, notching four strikeouts. The good mojo didn’t carry over into the ninth for Peery and eventually redshirt sophomore left-hander Graham Osman, who walked in BYU’s sixth and final run of the game.
Tulloch feels that the staff is still in a good place, regardless of some of the early mishaps in the back end.
“As a whole we’ve done pretty well as a staff,” Tulloch said. “We’ve had some tough losses, but that’s just baseball, that comes with the game. We’ll learn from it and do better next time.”
The Sun Devils continued to struggle in the situational hitting department as well on Friday night, stranding 10 baserunners in critical spots throughout the evening. This included a bases loaded situation in the fifth, where freshman designated hitter Jacob Tobias struck out and redshirt sophomore second baseman Sean McLain flew out to end the inning, leaving the Sun Devils empty handed.
A pair of costly baserunning blunders didn’t help the ASU cause either. Graduate first baseman Conor Davis was doubled off at second base on a McLain fly out to right field to end the third inning. Redshirt sophomore Kai Murphy’s sharp line out in the sixth caught freshman left fielder Ryan Campos a little too far off first base, allowing a quick throw back to the bag to end the inning at his expense.
“We can talk about form, approach and mindset and all that but at some point, they are capable of hitting very well,” Bloomquist said. “It’s a matter of getting it done in a big situation. I’m not gonna over-coach them but nothing changes – someone has to come up with a big hit and step up.”
ASU still managed to jump out to an early three-run lead on BYU freshman right-hander Janzen Keisel, who came in as the reigning WCC Pitcher of the Week. A fast start in the first helped set the tone, with redshirt sophomore center fielder Joe Lampe leading off with a ringing opposite field double before inevitably scoring on Davis’ RBI single.
In the third, ASU nabbed a pair of runs on a wild pitch that allowed sophomore shortstop Hunter Haas to sneak home from third before Tobias blasted a single up the middle to plate another. Keisel departed after four innings, striking out six while surrendering three walks and four hits.
BYU used seven additional arms out of the bullpen to hold ASU to just five more hits and two additional runs the rest of the night.
Sophomore left-handers Cooper McKeehan and Cy Nielson were the first arms out of the BYU bullpen and combined for 2.2 scoreless frames of work.
The Cougars claimed the series victory with the win and force the Sun Devils to find a way to salvage the series on Saturday afternoon, which seems to be a tough task following two demoralizing losses at the hands of the bullpen.
