(Photo: Karli Matthias/WCSN)
Through five games, opposing teams have made clear one thing to No. 13 Arizona State (2-3)– Spencer Torkelson will not beat them.
Once again Tuesday night, Oklahoma State employed the same strategy taken by the Villanova Wildcats just three days earlier at Phoenix Municipal Stadium. Rather than give one of the top prospects in college baseball a chance with the tying and go-ahead runs on base, both the Wildcats and Cowboys elected to intentionally walk the Sun Devil first baseman.
“If I’m the opposition, I would do the same thing,” said head coach Tracy Smith of Oklahoma State’s decision to give Torkelson his fifth intentional walk of the season.
What they were left with was Trevor Hauver at the plate with two outs and the bases loaded. With Arizona State trailing 2-1 Saturday against the Wildcats, Hauver worked the count full and struck out swinging on a fastball up in the zone.
Tuesday night, it was a quicker encounter for Oklahoma State, as Ben Leeper got Hauver to pop out to shallow left field on a 2-1 pitch, ending the Sun Devils’ comeback hopes in a 2-1 loss, their third of the season.
“I don’t think it’s so much a matter of somebody [stepping up]. We’ve got the guy,” Smith said of Hauver. “He’s a guy that if you look statistically hit over .400 in the seventh inning and beyond, so he’s the guy. It’s just we’re not too many at-bats into it and just a little bit of a slow start.”
Hauver, who batted .450 with runners in scoring position in 2019 has struggled mightily so far in 2020 for the Sun Devils. In 18 at-bats, the Sun Devil left fielder is hitting .167 with six strikeouts.
As a team, the Sun Devil bats remained cold Tuesday night. Arizona State left 11 runners on base in its loss to the Cowboys and have yet to produce a two-out RBI this season.
The Sun Devil offense’s failure to show up squandered yet another impressive performance on the mound, as Erik Tolman’s first start of the year added to a string of impressive performances from the Arizona State pitching staff in the early weeks of the 2020 season. In six-plus innings of work, the sophomore lefthander gave the Sun Devils plenty to be proud of.
“He was aggressive. Very competitive. Even when he fell behind, he made good pitches,” Smith said. “He’s confident. I love the confidence that he’s showing out there, and he’s looked well in the offseason so he kind of picked up where he left off.”
“I knew that my arm was going to be there, and I was going to come out there feeling fresh,” Tolman said. “I went out there and I felt really good.”
All night long, Oklahoma State hitters were watching and whiffing on strike three, as Sun Devil pitchers combined for 18 strikeouts. Tolman’s 12-strikeout performance doubled his career-high and was the most strikeouts by an ASU pitcher since Ryan Kellogg struck out 12 in eight innings of work against Oregon in 2014.
It also contributed to the Sun Devils’ most prolific strikeout showing since they punched out 18 against California in 1998.
“It’s just good execution,” said junior RJ Dabovich, who pitched an inning and a third, striking out three Cowboy hitters. “We worked hard all offseason and faced the best lineup arguably in the country several times. We bred confidence through preparation.”
Second baseman Drew Swift, who went 2-for-3 at the plate, said the Sun Devils offensive mentality will not change despite the poor results early.
“I honestly don’t think anything needs to change,” Swift said as the Sun Devils now prepare for a weekend series against Boston College. “We’re doing everything. We went in yesterday and all did stuff to help out our swing, but it’s just going to come. We don’t need to do anything. We don’t need to press.”
Smith and the rest of the Sun Devils maintained that the small sample size was to blame for the poor offensive results, expressing confidence in the teams’ ability to break out of the slump eventually.
“Right now, we’ve got a couple of guys who are good hitters, good players, guys that I believe in and that have done it and done it at a high level that are just not getting it done,” Smith said. “But we’re five friggin’ baseball games into it.”
