ASU Baseball: Sun Devils hit the road to open Pac-12 play against Oregon

(Photo: Rebecca Striffler/WCSN)

Arizona State Baseball looks to get back on track this weekend when it travels to Eugene to open up Pac-12 Conference play in a three-game series with No. 20-ranked Oregon.

“It’s nice to go out on the road,” ASU Head Coach Tracy Smith said on Tuesday. “Something like this adds growth and I feel really confident getting on that plane and competing up in Oregon.”

The Sun Devils fell to UNLV in a back-and-forth contest on Tuesday afternoon at Phoenix Municipal Stadium. This weekend’s series will be the first time ASU will play away from home this season.

With the Sun Devils losing three key pitchers in redshirt freshman left-hander Cooper Benson, redshirt junior right-hander Boyd Vander Kooi and redshirt sophomore left-hander Erik Tolman to Tommy John Surgery, redshirt sophomore right-hander Tyler Thornton, redshirt junior left-hander Justin Fall, redshirt freshman right-hander Christian Bodlovich and redshirt freshman right-hander Seth Tomczak could be pitchers who pick up the slack.

“It’s just bad timing for the team and for the kids that have been injured,” Smith said. “There’s nothing we can do to change the situation we are in but we have to find a way to cover 280-300 innings and we feel we have the pieces here to do that.”

ASU’s offense has stepped up drastically as of late. After a rocky start to the season, the Sun Devils have scored 7.1 runs per game in their last 10 games, including twice scoring 10 or more runs.

The two offensive spark plugs have been redshirt freshman infielder Sean McLain and redshirt freshman outfielder Joe Lampe.

McLain is showing his power, sending four baseballs over the wall this year and has seen 10 of his 19 hits rack up extra bases.

Lampe has done it with his legs while hitting an impressive .385. He’s legged out three doubles, two triples and has stolen three bases. He has also shown his clutch attribute by driving in 11 runs, good for second on the team only behind freshman infielder Hunter Haas.

Oregon comes in at 8-3 on the season, with seven of its 11 games coming against top 20-ranked opponents. The Ducks swept then-No. 15 UC Santa Barbara and took two of three from then-No. 17 Oregon State earlier this year.

Oregon junior right-handed pitcher Peyton Fuller has made two of the three Friday night starts for Oregon this season. The last Friday night start he made was on March 15 against UC Santa Barbara, where he struggled in 2.1 innings, allowing three runs and walking four batters.

Oregon’s most consistent starter this season has been junior right-handed pitcher Cullen Kafka. In his three starts, he’s thrown 14 innings to the tune of a 0.64 ERA and 21 strikeouts. In his last start against Oregon State, Cullen went five innings, giving up just two hits and striking out eight.

Additionally, junior left-handed pitcher Robert Ahlstrom turned in an efficient performance in his start for the Ducks last Friday night against the Beavers. In seven innings of work, he struck out 10 batters and allowed just three hits on 78 pitches.

The Ducks’ lineup has a very balanced hitting approach. Among their top seven at-bat getters, only one of them is hitting over .300 – sophomore outfielder Aaron Zavala is hitting .375.

Oregon’s leading home run hitter – redshirt junior two-way player Kenyon Yovan – has five in just seven games played. Six of his 13 hits are extra base hits, leading to his .481 average and 1.645 OPS on the year.

This will be the first conference play for Oregon since its series with Oregon State last weekend was a non-conference series. The Ducks come in as the second-highest ranked Pac-12 school in D1Baseball’s Poll, only behind No. 11 UCLA. This will be the Sun Devils’ first series against a ranked opponent and perhaps a test to their 11-3 non-conference record.

“We’ve got to do everything right and make them earn every base,” Smith said. “We’re going to have to pitch, throw strikes, play good defense and get timely hits [if] we will be in a good position to win. Going on the road is one more step in growing and maturing.”