(Photo: Nicholas Badders/WCSN)
The highest of highs can be followed by the lowest of lows seemingly overnight in baseball, or in the case of Arizona State (25-2) after two nights, as it suffered its second loss of the season in a midweek matchup against the Long Beach State Dirtbags (4-23) by the final of 14-9.
The one weakness of this Sun Devil team through the first half of the season has been the lack of depth in the bullpen for head coach Tracy Smith, a weakness that was exasperated following this past weekend’s sweep of Arizona.
After using primary relief options Brady Corrigan, Sam Romero, and Erik Tolman on multiple nights against the Wildcats, Smith had to turn to the secondary options of his pitching staff to get the job done on Tuesday, including handing the ball to freshman Dom Cacchione for his first collegiate start.
Coming into the game having made seven relief appearances, all in games that ended up being decided by at least six runs, Cacchione walked the first two Dirtbag hitters on nine pitches and was out of the game two batters later, following a hard-hit sacrifice fly and an RBI double to make the score 2-0.
“If you’re not going to compete we’re going to get you out,” Smith said post-game. “I was probably more disappointed about that, the fact that he wasn’t competing then maybe the result he had… but those things happen.”
Enter a bullpen game for the Sun Devils in a game where they were already shorthanded on arms.
A trio of Colby Davis, Luke LaFlam and Blake Burzell followed Cacchione out of the bullpen and combined to give up 10 runs, seven of them earned, but the pitching performance of the night came in the person of two-way freshman Marc Lidd.
After throwing one inning of relief in a 12-2 victory over San Diego on February 20th, Lidd delivered three shutout innings while facing just one batter over the minimum.
“I think [Lidd] was in there competing and doing well, so he will certainly earn more innings moving forward,” Smith said. “Because to me, it’s all about the competition piece, that you’re out there, you’re competing, you’re being aggressive, some nights you’re gonna have good stuff some nights you’re not.”
“I still say with what we have too, we’ll be able to put it together. It’s key for us to get the longer starts on the weekends so we’re not taxing the bullpen, but tonight was a wonderful opportunity for some guys to make some headway and put themselves in position, and unfortunately for them and us, they didn’t take advantage of it.”
Lidd’s outing allowed the Sun Devil offense to claw their way back to a respectable scoreline with a five-run eighth, highlighted by an RBI single from Trevor Hauver and a two-run double off the bat of Alika Williams.
“We don’t change anything, we just stick with the same game plan, and chip away,” Williams said.
The Sun Devils played uncharacteristically in all facets of the game on Tuesday with center fielder Hunter Bishop dropping a routine would-be fly-out that led to three unearned runs in a five-run second inning, as well as walking 12 batters, six of which that eventually came around to score.
For a team that has dominated a vast majority of the games they have played this season, ASU views Tuesday’s clunker as a massive learning opportunity.
“I think there’s definitely things we can take from this game,” Williams said. “I’d say just filling up the zone on the mound and competing. I think today we were kind of flat.”
“This game of baseball… if you don’t have maximum concentration, maximum focus, you’re setting yourself up to be knocked around a little bit,” Smith said.
As the saying goes, ‘There’s no rest for the weary’, at least in terms of the upcoming schedule for Arizona State.
The Devils hit the road for the second time in conference play this weekend when they travel to Dedeaux Field to face the USC Trojans, with a midweek game at UNLV preceding a massive series back at Phoenix Municipal Stadium against Adley Rutschman and the defending national champion Oregon State Beavers.
“Obviously [these games] are going to be important just because they’re conference games, but we’re just going to look at it like the next game,” Hauver said.
“Game by game,” Williams chimed in.
