(Photo: Dominic Cotroneo/WCSN)
Many could point their finger to a single play in the Sun Devils’ 7-4 loss to the Trojans and place the blame there. Johnny Sewald’s attempted and failed dive in the seventh inning that led to three runs in a tie ball game certainly jumps out.
“I had no problem with that. He’s an accomplished, very good outfielder and quite frankly, if he comes up with it we probably get an inning-ending double play,” head coach Tracy Smith said.
In reality, the blame should be placed on the absence of timely hitting for ASU, leaving a total of 11 runners on base and at least one in every inning, aside from the last two.
“It’s going to come and go. You’re not going to get two-out hits every single time. I was more frustrated with our lack of situational execution.” Skip continued, “I don’t fault our guys effort today we just didn’t get the hits with guys on base and that’s going to happen in baseball.”
Arizona State (34-20, 18-11) has likely lost its potential to host a regional with Saturday’s result. Southern California (36-19, 17-12) is also likely out but it could be close.
In a performance that has become common for ASU starter Ryan Kellogg, he allowed a run in the first inning on a sac-fly by Timmy Robinson. He hunkered down the next four innings though, only allowing one runner to reach second base in that stretch. The only problem was, ASU’s offense was stagnant.
Similar to Friday night, a lull hit ASU from the second through fifth innings. It couldn’t push a run across and left eight runners on base in the time frame. In that stretch, Jake Peevyhouse was thrown out by AJ Ramirez, as he was trying to score from second on a base hit to right field.
The offense finally backed up Kellogg in the sixth when Joey Bielek led off the inning with his second homer in as many days. An RJ Ybarra double led to another run after Ryan Lillard came to run the basepaths for him. Andrew Snow hit a deep flyout to left center to score Lillard and give the Sun Devils their first lead of the game.
USC found their Sun Devil killer in Timmy Robinson. He hit another home run in the sixth to match the pace set by Bielek. And three batters later, USC reclaimed a 3-2 lead on an RBI single by David Oppenheim–who was 0-5 to that point in the series.
In true “Cardiac Devil” fashion, ASU tied it up in the seventh thanks to Colby Woodmansee’s double down the line in left. He ended up stranded on third after reaching there with only one out.
Kellogg’s tank was running low with his 102 pitches, but he started the seventh off with a strikeout of leadoff hitter Bobby Stahel.
“I thought he was very good today, very effective. Unfortunately some of his full counts from early in the game caught up with him in the seventh, because he just got tired.”
A single and a walk ended Kellogg’s afternoon before he had to face Robinson. Ryan Burr came in to presumably close out the game or at least keep it close, but started off on the wrong foot.
Burr walked Robinson on four pitches and after a first pitch strike to Dante Flores, the senior roped a sinking liner to center. Johnny Sewald dove, missed, and the rest was history. Three runs scored, the energy in the dugout was deflated and the Trojans were off to a series tie.
“The game’s kind of on the line right there. So you use your guy, and it didn’t happen,” Smith said.
Trever Allen chipped in a solo shot to left field in the ninth inning but it was simply too little too late at that point.
“That’s the way baseball is,” Smith said. “It’s going to come down to a few plays in the middle of the game, situationally, that are going to decide the victor or the loser and we didn’t execute in those today, and they did.”
