(Photo: Paige Cook/WCSN)
In right field, Arizona State Baseball hangs a banner to immortalize the program’s rich history of all its NCAA national championships.
Five years stay printed on it: 1965, 1967, 1969, 1977 and 1981. But there lays an open spot on the poster next to those dates that California sophomore outfielder Trevor Tishenkel decided to put his mark on with a two-run home run on Saturday night. The impact of the ball caused the ASU banner to ripple, similar to how the Golden Bears crumbled up the Sun Devils 14-7.
Without their sophomore starter – right-hander Tyler Meyer – the Sun Devils struggled immensely finishing the Golden Bears’ batters, an issue that has plagued the club all season. Free bases early, and timely mistakes by ASU arms, continued to add to the rocky season for the program as they dropped the second game in the series.
“It was pretty dismal,” ASU head coach Willie Bloomquist said. “A lot of walks, way too many walks – 11 and a hit batter. It’s not a substantial way to win too many games.”
Without Meyer, ASU had to improvise and chose veteran sophomore right-hander Jared Glenn to start what was a busy day in the bullpen for the club. While experienced, this was Glenn’s first start of the year after coming off an injury in the offseason, and the rust was apparent as Glenn displayed an inability to finish Cal batters with three full-count walks in the first frame.
The Golden Bears wouldn’t let the chance to grab the lead early go to waste with a sac fielder’s choice and an RBI single by fifth-year infielder Hance Smith. Glenn would need to throw 33 pitches before getting the final out of an inning filled with messy pitching.
“In a perfect world, we were trying to get him through three, maybe four innings,” Bloomquist said. “He didn’t come out and throw the way he’s capable of throwing. It started off with three walks in the first inning. He’s usually a strike-thrower that pounds the zone, which is kind of why we went with him to start the game.”
Glenn would be on the mound for the second but wouldn’t be on it to end it, as he would allow the first two Cal batters on before an RBI single by junior infielder Nathan Martortorella extended the Cal lead to 3-0. ASU junior right-hander Will Levine would come in relief and deal early, retiring the next three California batters, two of them by strikeout.
Simultaneously, the pitching for the Golden Bears seemed to be a breeze compared to their opposition, with junior right-hander Joseph King slicing through the Sun Devils’ batter. The 2020 Collegiate Baseball freshman All-American struck out two in the first inning in only 12 pitches.
ASU would push back in the second, tagging along with some hits that accumulated to an RBI single by redshirt sophomore outfielder Kai Murphy, who finished the game with four RBIs.
“At a certain point, you have to get that edge,” Bloomquist said. “[Murphy] is the type of player, [that], when he plays with that mindset, that little bit of ‘piss-offness,’ he’s got a chance to be really good, and that’s what he’s been doing lately.”
Bloomquist said he believes that Murphy was mad at him after he benched the sophomore earlier in the season, and it might’ve led to him playing with that edge. However, his hit would be all as freshman infielder Alex Champagne struck out with runners on second and third base, which was a huge missed opportunity for the Sun Devils.
Levine, in the second inning, was able to finish batters in two-strike counts, but the third inning was different. After allowing an inning-opening single, Levine would see Tishenkel would launch his two-run shot into the national championships banner, making the game 5-1 for the Golden Bears and hushing the Sun Devil faithful in attendance.
King for the Golden Bears took the run support and ran with it, dominating five more frames and only surrendering one run with five strikeouts, three hits, and zero walks, making Sun Devils’ life at the plate difficult.
“That kid Joe King kept us off-balance,” Bloomquist said on why ASU bats struggled. “As a hitter, you don’t want to give pitching too much credit, but sometimes credit is due and [California] threw it well. We chased out of the zone too much, but like I said, 11 strikeouts, and we got to figure out how to put the ball in play.”
The one run surrendered by King came via ASU sophomore catcher Nate Baez’s RBI single down the middle, cutting the California lead to 5-2. However, utterly identical to the second inning, Champagne would have runners on second and third base but would strikeout and leave another two runs on base, killing all of the Sun Devils’ momentum.
“Offensively, we didn’t really do a great job tonight,” Bloomquist said. “We struck out 11 times. It’s not always by the numbers, but they seem to rear their head when you walk guys and strikeout. You seem to put an L in the loss column.”
ASU sophomore right-hander Blake Pivaroff would relieve Levine in the fifth and, like his bullpen teammates, had struggled finishing batters. California freshman infielder Carson Crawford would hit his own two-run shot on a two-out full-count, adding two for the Golden Bears to make it 7-2.
The ninth inning saw the Golden Bears tack on another seven runs, adding insult to injury as the Sun Devils would respond with five of their own in the bottom half.
“I say it time and time again, ‘these guys will battle till the last out,'” Bloomquist said. “I felt like we were in that game all the way until the ninth.”
ASU enters Sunday’s game against California tied 1-1 in the series. A win on Sunday would clinch its second-straight series win against a conference opponent and could be a considerable shift in the Sun Devils’ season.
“It is what it is. We have an opportunity to win the series tomorrow,” Bloomquist said. “This was an ugly game. It wasn’t good, it wasn’t well played on our part, but we do have to turn the page quickly because we have an early one tomorrow to bounce back.”
