(Photo: Jessica Carnivale/WCSN)
Crooked numbers were all over the scoreboard Sunday afternoon at Phoenix Municipal Stadium. That had become the norm again for Arizona State (8-4) after a slow start to the season offensively for the 12th-ranked Sun Devils had been washed away by 13- and 14-run performances Friday and Saturday night against Nebraska.
With Justin Fall searching for his first win in a Sun Devil uniform, a solo home run from Trevor Hauver in the first, and four-run second inning spotted the junior left-hander with an early 5-0 lead after he opened with two scoreless frames for the visitors from the Big Ten.
Fall struggled from there, loading the bases in the top of the third inning before issuing a walk to Aaron Palensky and hit by pitch to Luke Roskam. Then Leighton Banjoff unloaded on a 2-0 pitch for a no-doubt grand slam to left field, the first home run of his career.
Banjoff’s first home run of the day began an afternoon of pitching nightmares in an 18-10 loss for Arizona State, marred by bullpen struggles that mirrored that of the Sun Devils 2019 season.
“For me it wasn’t so much the home runs or the balls that go over the wall, it’s the execution of pitches and failed job of putting guys away,” head coach Tracy Smith said following the series finale. “Sometimes you’re going to run into a team that’s hot and I thought everything they put the bat on was hit hard.”
After two consecutive outings where outs were tougher to come by for Fall, Smith said he’s going to have to fight through it.
“You’ve gotta have a short memory. You’ve gotta get out there and compete in the zone,” Smith said of Fall, who’s pitched fewer than five innings in his two most recent starts after six scoreless innings on opening night. “I think that he was a victim of his own circumstances today in terms of the walks hurt him more than anything.”
“We’ve got a lot of baseball left and he’s a good pitcher. We’re not too worried about it. He’s pretty good.”
The Sun Devils allowed five home runs, three of which came during a fifth inning which saw Banjoff, Joe Acker and Cam Chick each take Bryce Barnett deep. Entering Sunday, the Sun Devils had gone 11 games without allowing opponents to score more than five runs in a game – the program’s longest such streak of games since 2009. In both the third and fifth innings alone, the Cornhuskers plated more than five runs.
“We couldn’t shut it off,” Smith said on a day where six of the seven Sun Devil pitchers who entered the game allowed a run. “Give them credit. Unfortunately, they were hot, and outs were tough to come by.”
Arizona State’s offense still showed up for the series finale. Spencer Torkelson responded to Nebraska’s eight unanswered runs with a three-run, 435-foot home run to right center field which tied the game at 8 apiece in the bottom of the fourth.
“That was cool,” Torkelson said of the Cornhuskers decision to pitch to him after Nebraska issued the Sun Devil first baseman six walks in the series’ opening two games.
Torkelson’s fifth home run of the season helped the Sun Devils total 13 hits and 10 runs in the loss, finishing up a weekend which saw ASU score 10-plus runs in all three games. Drew Swift continued his great weekend at the plate with the first home run of his collegiate career, a two-run shot in the seventh inning which just cleared the left-field fence.
“I just got an inside fastball, and I mean I felt good all weekend,” said Swift, who went 9-for-13 with two extra-base hits and five RBI during the weekend. “I honestly just tried to hit a line drive and just got some good launch angle on it, so it flew out of there.”
As the Sun Devils prepare for their first road trip of the season, a mid-week two-game series at Cal State Fullerton, Torkelson said they won’t worry themselves much with Sunday’s loss.
“We won the series and we played good baseball Friday and Saturday, so that’s a positive,” Torkelson said. “We didn’t make many mistakes, but that’s just baseball. Ball was flying a little bit and they got under some balls. You pretty much just forget about it.”
