(Photo: Marlee Smith/WCSN)
Arizona State Baseball’s Hunter Jump had his team’s momentum at his back.
Nevada freshman right-hander Kade Morris was having a rough inning in the bottom of the sixth. ASU redshirt freshman right-fielder Kai Murphy reached on an error to begin the frame. A wild pitch let him advance to second-base, then a balk from Morris let him take third. Perhaps rattled at that point, Morris hit ASU redshirt freshman second-baseman Sean McLain with a pitch, and finally walked redshirt junior shortstop Drew Swift.
It was a 3-3 game when ASU freshman third baseman Hunter Haas stepped up to the plate with the bases loaded. Like the rest of his team, he benefited from Nevada’s mistakes – a ground-ball to second couldn’t be turned toward first. Every Sun Devil was safe, no outs were recorded and ASU led 4-3.
But it was up to Jump – ASU’s redshirt junior left-fielder who began the day putting the Sun Devils up 1-0 in the bottom of the first and had struggled to start the season – to break the game open.
He didn’t need Nevada’s help. Just like he did to begin the game, Jump shot a double into the outfield, which brought two runners home to make the score 6-3 and help seal ASU’s (5-2) 13-4 win over the Wolfpack (4-4) on Tuesday afternoon.
“You can have a great at-bat, hit a ball hard and have a bad result,” ASU head coach Tracy Smith said of Jump. “[Jump’s] had some loud outs and didn’t have much to show for it. [Hunter’s in] the three-hole for us because he has a good at-bat darn near every time, and it’s good to see some of those fall in.”
Haas was able to see his tie-breaking hit come full circle, as freshman two-way player Ethan Long’s sacrifice fly brought him home to make it 7-3 ASU before the big inning ended.
The Sun Devils’ contest with the Wolfpack was a back-and-forth one though before Jump’s big hit.
Nevada tied ASU at one in the top of the third with a RBI single by freshman left-fielder Jacob Stinson. Prior to the score, ASU redshirt junior left-handed starting pitcher Justin Fall, who walked the Wolfpack’s leadoff batter, earned a visit from redshirt senior catcher Sam Ferri after throwing five straight balls outside the zone. The Wolfpack worked ASU on the base-paths before finding home plate in the inning, using a bunt and a sacrifice fly to put redshirt freshman catcher Dawson Martin in position to score off Stinson’s single.
After allowing the game to be tied, the Sun Devils pulled Fall – who gave up one run with one strikeout – and replaced him with freshman right-hander Jared Glenn.
“We said we’d like to get six outs with [Fall],” Smith said. “If we could have nine, that would be great. That’s just kind of what we mapped out to get through this game.”
While Glenn posted a solid outing in his Sun Devil debut on Feb. 27 against Hawaii, the California-native gave up three singles in his first three batters faced, and the Wolfpack took a 3-1 lead on a RBI single by redshirt junior designated hitter Tyler Bosetti and a RBI ground-out by redshirt senior shortstop Wyatt Tilley.
“That’s baseball,” Ferri said of Glenn’s peformance. “You can go out there and make pitches and [opponents are] still going to get hits.”
“You bring that back to the weekend where he shoved for 3.2 innings and nothing really changed. He’s very consistent and some days they are going to squeak in those hits and score some runs.”
Despite Glenn’s struggles, a fantastic diving catch by redshirt freshman center-fielder Joe Lampe limited the damage for the Sun Devils and ended the inning.
ASU responded promptly to Nevada’s push. A single by Ferri led to a RBI triple by Murphy, whose swing sent the ball ricocheting off the wall in center field and cut the Nevada lead to 3-2. Lampe, minutes after his perhaps crucial catch, tied the contest at three after a sac-fly granted a wild throw home from Nevada’s redshirt sophomore center-field Dario Gomez.
The Sun Devils’ rally was the end of Shane O’Malley’s day. Nevada’s redshirt sophomore starter lasted 3.2 innings, striking out three. The right-hander seemed at-times rattled with ASU runners on base, as the bottom of the first saw him attempt to pick off Swift at first-base six different times.
The sixth inning was not ASU’s only big offensive output of the day. After his go-ahead hit that preceded Jump’s double, Haas cleared the bases in the seventh after a double to center-field to make it 10-3 Sun Devils, and rose his RBI total on the day to four. Long then earned his first-career RBI to extend the Sun Devils’ lead to 11-3, as his single sent Haas home due to a throwing error by Nevada.
“We know he can hit,” Smith said of Long, who ended up closing the game on the mound. “We’ve known that for awhile.”
The Wolfpack threatened in the top of the eighth inning, but only tagged on one extra run to shrink the Sun Devils’ lead to 11-4. ASU answered in the bottom half, as freshman pinch-hitter Kade Higgins slammed his first career home-run into the bullpens in right field to extend ASU’s advantage to 13-4.
“It was a shock a little bit,” Higgins said of his homer. “I was just going in to hit. I was just thinking, ‘I can’t miss a fastball early and I can’t go down swinging.’
“I got one – I was late on it a bit, but my hands got there and I guess I was in a good position.”
For all the doubts and questions about the Sun Devils’ revamped offensive strategy entering the 2021 season, Tuesday’s matinee against Nevada might have provided an answer. While Pac-12 Conference foe Utah comes to town this weekend, the three-game series doesn’t count on either school’s conference record.
The Sun Devils’ last three games, including Saturday’s doubleheader against Hawaii, have awoken the bats after ASU didn’t score more than three runs in its first four games. That could prove to be a very necessary boost heading into Friday, and give the Sun Devils a low-stakes measuring-stick game in a contest that would usually have a bit different of an environment surrounding it.
“This mid-week really helped us open up to who we are and we kind of just let things go,” Jump said. “ We needed this midweek to just let it go. And it help us set the tone.”
