(Photo: Xavier Littman/WCSN)
Arizona State baseball’s bats were able to keep up with UC Irvine’s red-hot offense in games one and two. But this couldn’t have been further from the case in Sunday’s 7-2 loss to the Anteaters (10-1), as ASU was unable to avoid being swept at home for the first time in over a year.
The game was seemingly out of reach for the Sun Devils (6-5) from the get-go. Junior left-handed pitcher Timmy Manning was shelled during his third start of the season, conceding three hits, two walks and four earned runs in just a third inning of work. After beginning the 2023 campaign with 22.1 scoreless innings, ASU’s starters have given up 29 earned runs in the following 14.2 frames.
Junior infielder Jo Oyama, the first batter of the afternoon, got the ball rolling for UCI with a single through the left side. Manning was never able to settle in and surrendered the game’s first two runs in the span of 11 pitches, all without recording an out. Things wouldn’t improve for the Florida native, as the Anteaters picked up two more walks and another RBI single before head coach Willie Bloomquist pulled the plug on his starter.
“[Manning]’s trying too hard, he’s amped up,” pitching coach Sam Peraza said. “He’s trying to make the perfect pitch. He needs to understand his stuff’s good enough to just throw a regular one. It doesn’t have to be the best one out of his hand every single time.”
UCI lefty Nick Pinto, who is putting together a dominant start on the mound, didn’t make things easier for the Sun Devils, who found themselves in a 5-0 hole in the second inning. The redshirt junior had no issues attacking the zone – 42 of his 64 pitches were strikes – and ended his five-inning outing with seven strikeouts. On top of that, Pinto was virtually unhittable, and only relinquished a single base hit to freshman infielder Luke Hill in the second frame.
“We were taking a lot of heaters for strikes early on,” sophomore catcher Ryan Campos said. “Then [Pinto] was just throwing stuff below the zone, and we were going for it. … That’s why we seldom get beat by teams, we always beat ourselves. So it’s frustrating.”
The Sun Devils didn’t fare much better against right-hander Cameron Wheeler, Pinto’s replacement on the bump. Wheeler needed just 29 pitches to get through three innings of work, with 22 of those pitches landing inside the strike zone. While the junior only retired one batter via the strikeout and faced some adversity, the Anteaters’ defense beared down and never let ASU find any consistency at the plate.
Perhaps the best example of this came in the seventh inning, when Campos singled down the middle with one out, representing Sun Devils’ first baserunner since the second. However, junior infielder Ethan Long then hit into a 5-4-3 double play, killing any momentum ASU was starting to build up.
“Yeah, baseball is all about momentum, especially college baseball,” Campos said. “So try to take what you can take and just keep going with it.”
Much like yesterday afternoon, ASU attempted to muster a comeback in the game’s final innings. Sophomore infielder Jacob Tobias broke the shutout in the eighth when he sent a solo shot over the center-field wall. The Bakersfield, Calif. native homer was a microcosm of his play throughout the entire three-game series. Tobias wrapped up the weekend going 6-13 at the dish with two home runs, a triple and six RBIs.
While an RBI single from Tobias in the bottom of the ninth gave the home crowd a sliver of hope, a comeback wasn’t in the cards, as ASU was swept at Phoenix Municipal Stadium for the first time since Feb. 24-26 of last season, when it dropped three consecutive games against BYU to fall below .500.
Despite a less-than-ideal result against UCI, there’s little time for the Sun Devils to hang their heads, as No. 12 Oklahoma State awaits in Stillwater for a two-game midweek set starting on Tuesday.
“It’s not a time for us to panic,” Peraza said. “We need to just get back to the drawing board. Those guys got kicked in the you-know-what, and now they get to bounce back and show what they can do.”
