Photo: Bobby Kraus/WCSN
Two games. For good or for bad it’s been just two games. Tracy Smith, the players and the rest of the coaching staff on Sun Devil Baseball have kicked off 2019 with new confidence. A ’30 runs in two games’ type of confidence and a confidence that has kicked off the season with two emphatic wins.
Shortsightedly, the reaction to the team’s immediate success can be nothing but positive. The team is winning, the pitching staff is doing its job and the offense is putting up jaw-dropping numbers. But, in the eyes of many, it is far too soon to make a judgment on whether or not the offense is legitimate.
“Two games in and I’m not going to make any great assessments,” Smith said.
While there need not be any assessments made, perhaps a forecast, based not only on the last two days but on trends set early on last year, is appropriate. A forecast that suggests it is not too early to buy in on the Sun Devil offense as the high octane production at the plate could very well be the rule, not the exception.
Whether it is a Carter Aldrete home run or a Trevor Hauver walk, ASU has played a nearly perfect brand of baseball at the plate. In the team’s first two games of the season, they have put up 30 total runs, 10 on opening night and, for the first time since 2010, they put 20 runs on the scoreboard in game two.
Sure, this could very well be in large part due to the highly inexperienced Fighting Irish pitching staff. Of Notre Dame’s 18 pitchers on the roster, 12 of them are either freshman or sophomores. But, this level of success is rooted in something far more sustainable than some early season luck and a young opposing pitching staff. The Devils are hitting well with runners on base, and it is not the first time this has happened.
In the minuscule 2019 sample, the Devils are hitting an astronomical .469 with runners in scoring position. It is a high number that will undoubtedly shrink but metaphorically speaking if you take a foot off of a 7’3 basketball player, it doesn’t make him short.
Lob a ‘foot’ off of the Devils’ production with runners on second, third or both and this team is still producing runs at a clip far higher than last year by that statistic alone.
In 2018, with runners in scoring position the Devils hit .277, a number that helped push ASU to a top three hitting school in the Pac-12. However, the Devils’ discipline at the dish only netted them 5.64 runs per game, an otherwise high number. But in the Pac-12 rankings, it finished just sixth overall.
Situational awareness is the key here. Last year where someone may have swung for the fences with a runner at third and one out, players like Lyle Lin are satisfied with a ground out to push a run across, something he did in the 20-run showing on Saturday night.
“We are a more mature team,” Carter Aldrete said.
That is the takeaway from the early season favorable outcomes. The Devils are hitting smarter, not harder.
Their 15 runs per nine innings average is obviously unsustainable. While those numbers are a trend, patience, maturity and greater situational understanding are not. So, from games one and two, the expectation should not be absurd run production for the rest of the year, that is a ridiculous knee-jerk reaction.
However, observe the qualities that have gotten the Devils to 30 runs in two games and the takeaway is different and immediately encouraging. This is a more mature team and through two games, it is a judgment, an assessment and a forecast that is not far fetched at all.
