ASU Baseball: Coming off UCLA sweep, Sun Devils make NCAA tournament as No. 2 seed

(Photo: Susan Wong/WCSN)

Arizona State Baseball’s roller coaster regular season is over.

After suffering critical season-ending injuries early in the season and in the fall and struggling early on in Pac-12 Conference play while trying to piece together something of a weekend rotation, the Sun Devils still managed to go 32-20 with 16 conference wins and earn a spot in the Austin Regional of the 2021 NCAA Baseball Tournament. ASU will play Fairfield in the first game of the double-elimination bracket on Friday at 4 p.m. MST.

There is certainly a lot more to play for as ASU heads into the NCAA Tournament, but their
confidence certainly wasn’t helped after being swept in the final weekend of the regular season against UCLA. The Sun Devils – after winning five consecutive weekends series in a row – were shutout 3-0 on Saturday to end the series.

The Sun Devils only tagged four hits against Bruins junior right-handed starter Jesse Bergin, who went seven innings in the winning effort. ASU got five solid innings of work out of freshman right-hander Jared Glenn, who head coach Tracy Smith feels could be of use come the Regional.

“It’s all about staying in the winners bracket, so we’ll do everything possible to stay there,”
Smith said. “We’ll make decisions based on opponent matchups and how fresh guys are. I
thought he [Glenn] showed that he was certainly capable.”

The Sun Devils finished the regular season ranked No. 40 nationally in RPI and lost their top 25 ranking after the UCLA series. Their 16-14 record in the Pac-12 leaves them tied for fifth in the conference with Oregon State.

The road through Austin won’t be easy. ASU has to go through a Fairfield lineup on Friday night that hit .305 this season – good for the 15th-best mark in the nation. Along with Texas – the Regional’s host and the No. 2 overall seed in the Tournament – the Stags were also at the very top of the national leaderboard in team ERA as well.

The Longhorns pose an entirely different test to the Sun Devils, with one of the strongest
pitching staffs in the country with redshirt sophomore right-hander Ty Madden – a likely first round pick in this year’s MLB Draft – and plenty of other top arms. The Longhorns had a 2.95 ERA as a team this year, and they also ranked fourth in WHIP.

This is the Sun Devils’ fourth appearance in a Regional since Smith took over in 2015. Their latest turn came in 2019 in Baton Rouge.

As it’s been for most of the season, the biggest test for ASU throughout the postseason will be at the hands of the starting pitching. The season-ending losses of redshirt freshman left-hander Cooper Benson, redshirt sophomore left-hander Erik Tolman and redshirt junior right-hander Boyd Vander Kooi to Tommy John Surgery have made structuring a consistent rotation a hassle for Smith and the coaching staff.

Since losing Benson, Tolman and Vander Kooi, nine different pitchers have started games for
ASU. Pitching coach Jason Kelly’s staff has been hit hard down the stretch with the team ERA
ballooning to 5.12 by the season’s end.

The Sun Devils’ defense has helped suppress some of the damage as of late, turning a nation’s-best 57 double plays this season while sporting a .976 fielding percentage – 48th highest in the country. Regardless, it was a rough May for the pitching staff, as it was outscored 111-106 during that span.

The Sun Devils top starter this season, redshirt junior left-hander Justin Fall, will certainly be
turned to for yet another deep outing at some point this weekend. Fall has stepped up in a big
way this year after being viewed as a bullpen arm at the beginning of the season before the staff’s big injuries.

Thrusted back into his starting role, Fall pitched to the tune of a 3.86 ERA in 74.2 innings of
work. Over his final four starts of the season, Fall went 27.2 innings while only surrendering 12 earned runs.

Aside from the pitching, the Sun Devils’ offense will play a large part in how far ASU gets this
June. Freshman designated hitter Ethan Long and company finished in the top five in the Pac-12 in home runs and batting average.

Long, freshman first baseman Jack Moss, redshirt junior shortstop Drew Swift, redshirt
freshman second baseman Sean McLain and freshman third baseman Hunter Haas all hit over .300 this season and combined for 289 of ASU’s 514 hits. Redshirt freshman utility man Nate Baez has also started to heat up at the right time, hitting .428 (12-for-28) with 14 RBI in his last nine games.

The center-piece of it all has been Long, who finished with the second-most home runs in the
Pac-12, tallying 16. The three-time Pac-12 Player of the Week cooled off mightily during the
final two weekend sets of the season, but still poses arguably the largest threat in the Sun Devils’ lineup heading into the postseason.

The last time the Sun Devils made it to Omaha was in 2010, when Tim Esmay led them in his first season as head coach. They will certainly be looking to break that drought this year but it will take a lot to get there, especially with no added momentum coming in.

Given how the Sun Devils have survived this season with a beaten and battered roster and a physically taxed pitching staff, there is reason to believe that ASU has a chance
to appear in the College World Series, though.

“Come Friday everybody is 0-0,” Smith said. “Come Friday, what you did last night means
absolutely nothing to what we’re doing this weekend. I’m proud of this team for believing in
themselves to be able to extend the season and [potentially] get to Omaha. We’re not going to show up, we’re going to win a Regional.”