(Photo: Marlee Smith/WCSN)
Arizona State Baseball has progressed through its fall camp seemingly smoothly thus far.
On Saturday, the Sun Devils got to face off against another squad for the first time in the Willie Bloomquist era, as ASU played a 16-inning exhibition against the Long Beach State Dirtbags.
LBSU outscored the Sun Devils 7-3 through the first nine innings of the scrimmage. Here are some observations of ASU’s performance from the scrimmage’s first half.
Pitching struggles
The Sun Devils showcased a lot of their likely regulars on the mound throughout the first nine innings, including transfers like redshirt junior left-hander Adam Tulloch, redshirt junior right-hander Kyle Luckham and sophomore right-hander Josh Hansell.
Luckham got through his first inning of work in a seamless manner, but was pulled in the second due to an apparent lower back injury.
The struggles then ensued.
ASU issued a combined seven walks while hitting almost as many batters. Tulloch labored through 1.2 frames of scoreless baseball but walked and hit a pair of batters and worked himself into multiple three-ball counts.
Hansell was tagged for five runs, a walk and a pair of hits – both of which were home runs. He also hit two batters in his inning of work before being replaced by sophomore right-hander Brock Peery.
Peery faced similar trouble in his second inning of work, allowing two runs on a hit and a pair of walks.
The loss of control led to the seven runs scored by the Dirtbags in the middle innings.
Meanwhile, redshirt sophomore right-hander Christian Bodlovich, redshirt sophomore left-hander Graham Osman and redshirt junior right-hander Will Levine all had scoreless outings and combined to strike out four batters in three innings.
Left side of the infield
With the loss of former shortstop Drew Swift to the MLB this summer, ASU has been forced to experiment with the left side of its infield.
Whatever the Sun Devils decide to do, it appears they have found their likely Opening Day shortstop: sophomore Hunter Haas.
Haas showed prowess throughout the spring at the third base, a performance that earned him a spot on the Pac-12 Conference All Defensive Team. He made a few tough plays on balls hit his way, and showed off his arm on a few long throws as well.
Meanwhile, at third base, Bloomquist and his staff have opted to test sophomore infielder Ethan Long out at that spot.
While Long’s opportunities in the field were limited, it’s clear he has the potential to play the position at a high level given his athleticism, but it’s a work in progress. He airmailed sophomore infielder Blake Pivaroff at first base on a slow roller he had to charge in on in the eighth inning.
While he can’t be judged off of one play, it shows he has room to grow at the position.
