(Photo: Karli Matthias/WCSN)
Alec Marsh stared into Sam Ferri’s catcher’s mitt in the top of the seventh inning with a 3-2 count. Digging into the batter’s box was Oregon State’s All-American catcher Adley Rutschman, the projected number one overall draft pick this June. A matchup countless numbers of college baseball fans and media would be anticipating. A matchup between one of the best pitchers in the Pac-12 versus arguably the best hitter in the entire country, let alone the Pac-12.
On the seventh pitch of the at-bat, Marsh threw a hard fastball high and inside. Rutschman put a swing on it but got jammed, flipping out a weak, shallow fly ball to right field. Carter Aldrete initially retreated, and then broke in to make the easy catch.
“You just try to give them your best stuff,” Marsh said. “I’m just in the mindset of ‘You’re not going to hit my stuff.’ I’m going to do my best to challenge him.”
It may have been an easy fly out, but what Marsh did was reflective of the entire game. Weak contact. Swings and misses. Complete dominance. He carved up the entire Beavers lineup from top to bottom, no matter if it was Rutschman or the number nine hitter. The junior right-hander tossed a three-hit complete game as the No. 13 Sun Devils (27-5, 10-3 Pac-12) took Friday’s opener over the No. 4 Beavers (23-8-1, 9-4 Pac-12) 4-1.
Friday night marked the first complete game of Marsh’s career, and he finished the game allowing only one walk and striking out ten, improving his record to 8-1 and lowering his ERA to 2.02. The only blemish of the night came on a second-inning home run by Alex McGarry of Oregon State.
“He was dialed in,” Arizona State head coach Tracy Smith said. “He was making quality pitch after quality pitch. Even when he fell behind a couple of hitters, he battled back. That was an exceptional performance by him.”
It was the type of start Marsh was needing after a lackluster outing in Pasadena last weekend against USC. He allowed eight earned runs on ten hits and four walks, taking the loss for the first time in 2019.
However, Friday night was a return back to usual form for the Devils’ ace, with a good mix of his low-to-mid-90s fastball as well as his deceptive breaking pitches.
“My slider was good. I thought my curveball was even better,” Marsh said. “Even the changeup early on, I couldn’t spot it as well as I could toward the second half of the game. It became a huge factor.”
“My last outing wasn’t good but I still felt good with my stuff,” Marsh said. “You kind of just trust the process; it’s baseball. We’re going to have these lows but it’s about coming back to our core roots and what we do every day and it’s trying to win every single game.”
Sun Devil hitters racked up twelve hits against Beaver pitching, including eleven versus Beavers’ left-handed starter Brandon Eisert, who came into this game with a 7-0 record and a 0.75 ERA, despite only making his fourth start of the season. Trevor Hauver collected two RBI while Spencer Torkelson and Gage Workman notched RBI singles of their own to lead the Devils’ offense. However, ASU could have done a lot more damage on the scoresheet had it not stranded 14 baserunners.
“We thought we were going to move the baseball tonight,” Smith said. “I’ll give [Eisert] credit, man. He stranded a lot of runners. He made big pitches when he needed to. But we were really confident. We felt like we were going to put some runs up tonight on him. He shut us down run-wise but I was pleased with our at-bats we were able to put together off of him.”
For most of the guys in the ASU dugout, Friday night was used as motivation after “one of the worst losses” Smith had ever seen on Tuesday, when the bullpen choked a five-run lead in the ninth and lost to UNLV 10-9. Having that chip-on-the-shoulder mentality may have helped the Devils, especially with the defending national champions rolling into town.
“You got to wipe the slate clean. That was horrible,” Smith said. “Tonight, [Marsh’s] performance was fantastic. But it doesn’t really matter. We have to put that away, and Boyd Vander Kooi has to be just as solid tomorrow because that is a really good baseball team. You got to have a short memory whether you win or lose and focus on the next challenge at hand, which is the next game.”
“We got a lot of young pitchers in that dugout. For them to see that type of performance, I think that certainly has benefit, for sure.”
The Devils and Beavers return to action on Saturday night at Phoenix Municipal Stadium, with Vander Kooi set to oppose Bryce Fehmel. First pitch is scheduled for 6:30 PM.
