(Photo: Susan Wong/WCSN)
It might be safe to say that Arizona State Baseball had its signature moment of the still-young 2021 season on Friday night against Cal State Fullerton.
Between the bat-flipping home runs and the complete shutout effort from the pitching staff, the Sun Devils had everything going for them in a 10-0 onslaught of the Titans.
To follow that performance up on Saturday afternoon seemed like a tall order, but after trailing late, ASU found a way to keep its eight game winning streak alive with a 6-4 win over the Titans.
Redshirt sophomore starting pitcher Tyler Thornton took the hill looking to bounce back after a shaky outing against Utah. He matched up with Titans sophomore right-hander Kyle Luckman.
Offensively, game two proved to be nothing short of a fever dream for the Sun Devils compared to Friday night’s affair. ASU failed to plate base-runners with less than two outs on multiple occasions, including in the third inning where both redshirt junior shortstop Drew Swift and freshman third-baseman Hunter Haas were retired with redshirt senior catcher Nick Cheema stranded at third.
But the Sun Devils’ batters came through when it mattered most.
“Whether you’re behind or ahead, your approach is gonna stay the same,” redshirt freshman second-baseman Sean McLain said. “Eventually we were able to get some fastballs and take advantage.”
Pitching once again had the upper hand in the early going. Both Thornton and Luckham surrendered two hits each through the first three innings.
After failing to see the fifth inning in his last start due to a high pitch count, Thornton came out firing in the first three innings and struck out six Titans. This time around though, he ran into a different kind of trouble in the fourth.
The Titans walloped back-to-back homers off of Thornton, including a two-run shot from sophomore catcher Omar Veloz and a solo bomb from junior shortstop Josh Urps.
Thornton cruised through the fifth inning, throwing only seven pitches, but once again ran into trouble to start the sixth after Cal State Fullerton junior designated-hitter Austin Schell pounded one over the left-field fence. Thornton departed in the moments that ensued, and finished the day going five innings while giving up four earned runs on six hits. He also added six strikeouts.
“I don’t look at it as a particularly bad performance,” ASU head coach Tracy Smith said. “He did his job, we needed him to go five and that’s what he did.”
ASU answered in the bottom half of the fourth inning when redshirt freshman right-fielder Kai Murphy floated a wall-scraping two-run dinger to center-field to cut the deficit to one.
“I heard my Dad’s voice [former ASU head coach Pat Murphy] saying eliminate the second-basemen,” Murphy said. “I wasn’t gonna roll over to second, and when you do that good things happen.”
Both sides remained quiet until the bottom half of the seventh inning where the Sun Devils took control by tying the game at four. Freshman infielder Blake Pivaroff had another crucial pinch-hit appearance, as he singled home a run.
Luckham exited following the play. He went six innings, gave up five runs on seven hits and struck out six.
Redshirt freshman center-fielder Joe Lampe then followed that up with a sacrifice-fly that scored Murphy to tie the game. Later in the inning, Haas gave the Sun Devils the lead on a two-out RBI single to left-field.
To cap the scoring off, McLain belted another homer to left, his second in as many days, to add some much needed insurance in the eighth.
“We gotta keep pecking,” Murphy said. “That’s the team that we are. We don’t go away.”
The deciding factor once again came down to the Sun Devils’ bullpen, which had its back against the wall in the eighth inning. Freshman right-hander Jared Glenn allowed a pair of singles to start the inning before redshirt junior left-hander Justin Fall punched out a batter, leaving runners on second and third with two outs.
It was then up to freshman two-way player Ethan Long (who came in to replace Fall from first base) to get the four-out save once more.
After striking out Titans’ junior outfielder Jason Brandow to strand both runners in the eighth inning, Long secured the victory in the top half of the ninth.
“I got pretty pumped up when Skip said I was coming in,” Long said. “I wanted the ball. That’s what I work for is those situations.”
The win extends the Sun Devils’ streak to eight games. They will go for their second consecutive series sweep on Sunday afternoon, as Fall will start for ASU.
