(Photo: Karli Matthias/WCSN)
Sun Devil baseball head coach Tracy Smith vowed that his team would be able to flush Saturday’s 18-3 loss to No. 1 UCLA and come out ready to compete in the series finale on Sunday afternoon.
Despite playing “terribly” according to Smith, committing four errors and managing only two hits from the second to seventh innings after a four-run opening frame, No. 22 Arizona State (33-12, 14-10 Pac-12) scrapped and clawed its way to an 8-7, come-from-behind victory over UCLA (37-8, 16-5 Pac-12), salvaging the final game of this three-game series.
“It’s definitely a good feeling. They’re the number one team in the country for a reason,” Carter Aldrete said post-game. “It has to be hands down the best pitching staff we’ve faced all year. And they kept us quiet Friday and Saturday, but we came out today aggressive today with kind of a different game plan. That’s just a big team win.”
The aggressive approach paid immediate dividends for Arizona State in the first inning, as Trevor Hauver and Spencer Torkelson singled followed by an Alika Williams walk set the stage for center fielder Hunter Bishop to launch a grand slam to straightaway center field, giving the Devils their first lead of the weekend.
“Anytime you can get a good chunk of runs versus that team it’s going to put them down,” Bishop said. “Cause they’re not used to giving up that many runs I’m sure. So to put up a four-spot in the first was a great tone to set.”
After the first inning, the game seemed to shift back toward UCLA, who immediately answered its first-inning deficit with a three-run second inning before plating one in the fifth and three in the sixth to take a 7-4 lead.
What could have been the most costly of the four errors for Arizona State on Sunday came in that three-run sixth, with freshman pitcher Blake Burzell fielding a sacrifice bunt attempt by Ryan Kreidler with runners on first and second.
Burzell’s initial instinct was to try and gun down Noah Cardenas at third base, but listened to his catcher Sam Ferri’s directions to get the out at first. Burzell airmailed Williams covering the bag, allowing Cardenas to score.
The Bruins plated two more runs after that, a circumstance that might cause some freshman pitchers to fold under pressure, but Burzell had a simple mindset when he trotted back out to the mound in the seventh.
“After that happened I just got fricking pissed off,” Burzell said. “And I was like, ‘I’m not letting these kids score again.’ So I was just pounding the zone… I’m just glad we came out of here with a win.”
“Sometimes with a freshman who’s not been through that situation a lot, he reacted the way he was supposed to,” Smith said. “Outside of that though, with that dude, I thought he was also one of the main factors of the game, so good for him to grow up a little bit.”
With Burzell able to bounce back with a scoreless seventh and eighth inning, the fate of the game came down to Aldrete in the bottom of the eighth, called upon to pinch-hit for the first time this season with the go-ahead run on third base in Bishop, and two runs already in.
The junior showed the importance of being prepared for an opportunity no matter when or how it comes, as he delivered an RBI single to score Bishop and put the Devils ahead 8-7.
“This was my first non-start of the season so I was just kind of just locked in the whole game knowing I was going to get a big at-bat,” Aldrete said. “He threw me a first-pitch fastball in the dirt… and then he came back with a breaking ball. So as soon as he threw the second breaking ball for a strike I was just sitting dead-red, and he threw it off the plate a little bit and I got it to nestle in there.”
“That shows his maturity, his care for the team because he didn’t pout, he didn’t mope, he stayed in the game and arguably got the biggest hit of the game for us,” Smith said. “But if he’s not doing those things mentally throughout the game… he probably doesn’t deliver right there.”
The come-from-behind win marked the third time this season that the Devils have been able to avoid a sweep in conference play, as they now get set for their longest stretch of road games in 2019, with a midweek non-conference game in Tucson against the Arizona Wildcats on Tuesday before weekend series at Nebraska and California.
While the aspirations for hosting a regional that seemed nearly a shoe-in after a 25-1 start have taken a big hit in recent weeks, the confidence that has exuded from this team from day one of the season has not wavered one bit as they now get set for their final ten games before the NCAA tournament field is determined.
“Every game matters from here on out,” Aldrete said. “We’re trying to do our best to host, even if it’s in the cards even if it’s not, we want to win as many baseball games as we can obviously going into postseason.”
“Like Skip says, the next game is the most important. I think we got Arizona on Tuesday, and that’s a must-win. And then we go to Nebraska and those are must-win games too. But each and every day we kind of just take that same mindset of ‘These games matter,’ because we want to eventually get to Omaha.”
