(Photo: Susan Wong/WCSN)
It’s hard to find a hotter hitter on the planet right now than freshman designated hitter Ethan Long.
The young slugger came into Saturday night leading the Pac-12 in home runs after walking off Oregon State on a three-run shot on Friday that incited pandemonium amongst the Phoenix Municipal Stadium faithful.
Arizona State baseball’s offense as a whole has fed off of Long’s insane power streak. Coming into Saturday, Long blasted 13 homers in 14 games. During that span, the Sun Devils have scored 10 or more runs four times.
“What makes this run with Ethan so impressive is that he’s continuing to do what he’s doing in-conference,” said head coach Tracy Smith. “What we’re seeing right now I would qualify as simply special.”
Redshirt junior shortstop Drew Swift even had a nice three-homers-in-three-games stretch going into game two of the series against the Beavers. The vintage ASU power outburst didn’t quite stop on Saturday either.
Long tallied his fourth multi-homer game of the season as part of a five home run night from the ASU offense en-route to a dominating 11-5 win over the Beavers. The win is number 30 for the Sun Devils, and one that puts them ahead of the Beavers in the Pac-12 standings.
The Beavers sent freshman left-hander Cooper Hjerpe to the hill to face the Sun Devil order to begin. Coming in, Hjerpe only surrendered one home run in 59 innings of work this season.
In the first two innings, Hjerpe allowed a pair of two-run shots to Long and redshirt freshman center fielder Joe Lampe. In the third, he gave up two more. On back-to-back at-bats, Hjerpe surrendered a Long two-run shot 428 feet over the left field wall and a solo bomb from freshman third baseman Hunter Haas.
“I’ve always viewed hitting as being contagious,” said Long. “If one guy is hitting, the next is gonna follow. Lampe followed me up with a two-run shot, that was cool. Haas was upset that he hit a ground ball in his first at-bat, Skip grabbed his bat saying he was gonna talk a hit into it and the next AB he went yard.”
Hjerpe’s outing ended after three innings, a rare site for an OSU pitching staff that has allowed the second-fewest homers in the Pac-12.
The Sun Devils added a pair on a Swift RBI single and a passed ball in the fourth to extend the lead further.
While Oregon State’s pitching wasn’t having the best night, redshirt junior Justin Fall turned in yet another quality start for the Sun Devils. After his 133-pitch complete game against California last Saturday, Fall threw another 94 pitches in 7.1 innings of work.
“It was kind of a light week for me this week,” said Fall, who improved to 7-1 with the win. “I think I’m doing a good job giving us innings and giving our bullpen guys a break.”
Fall’s performance lowers his ERA to 3.41 over 63.1 innings.
The Sun Devil left-hander was aided by some stellar defense behind him, inducing four double-plays to compensate for only one strikeout.
“I think for me I can get strikeouts if I want,” said Fall. “I think pitching to contact and keeping my pitch count relatively low was effective.”
The Beavers tagged a pair of runs against Fall before the end of his outing. One coming from junior catcher Troy Claunch on an RBI single and another on a homer from senior shortstop Andy Armstrong.
Before it was all over, redshirt freshman catcher Nate Baez stayed hot with a two-run homer that brought home Long, who was inches shy of his third homer of the night but instead settled for a double off the top of the wall. The pair of runs came in the seventh and proved to be more than enough to help secure the win.
“I’m just focusing on finding barrels,” said Baez. “That was just a good way to end the day.”
The Beavers added back-to-back homers in the ninth against redshirt sophomore reliever Dom Cacchione but the sudden surge mattered not as the Sun Devils grabbed a huge series victory.
The Sun Devils will go for the sweep on Sunday afternoon to try and extend their winning streak to six.
