(Photo: Brady Klain/WCSN)
LOS ANGELES — A baseball game is like a mirror: a pane of glass clear enough, with reflections so strong, that a player or a team can look into it with a clear picture of the past staring right back at the looker. Each game a new peek at the team’s own reflection.
No two glances are the same yet each is telling and honest. Some looks into the mirror give a glimpse into a team’s unfavorable past. Others into an optimistic future.
The past week for Arizona State baseball has been like a long and journeyed stare into its own reflection.
With some looks came mirroring images of the team’s ugly history: A history riddled with a lack of attention to detail, an abundance of errors and pitching that inspired none. This look into the mirror offered little comfort for head coach Tracy Smith as it was an eerily similar look into a past the team has tried to run from.
“We’re not playing our best baseball right now,” Smith said. “We’re making mistakes decision-wise from guys that are more than capable of making good decisions.”
But, in other looks into the mirror like that on Sunday against USC, the reflection was positive and a cast-back image of what could be and what has been so far in 2019.
The Sun Devils (26-4, 9-3) came away with their first win in a week, beating the Trojans (12-18, 5-7) by a final score of 11-8 on a warm Sunday afternoon in Los Angeles. The win was solid, the journey to it a refreshing look into the metaphorical mirror.
Albeit one error. The ASU defense held up on Sunday and the pitching was strong despite an early exit from RJ Dabovich who went down with a shoulder injury.
“His shoulder tightened up,” pitching coach Mike Cather said.
“We aren’t sure yet where he’s at,” Smith added following Cather’s comment.
The injury could be catastrophic for ASU as it would take a pitcher from an already short-handed bullpen. The likely candidates to replace Dabovich in the event of an injury are Erik Tolman and Sam Romero.
Dabovich was followed by Brady Corrigan, who valiantly filled in for his fallen starter and, despite surrendering five earned runs, gave Smith the length he needed from his bullpen to preserve other arms for the coming week.
But, for Smith, the focus on Sunday was not necessarily on his team’s ability to simply come to a game and win it. He expects that. Sunday’s victory was in the score yes, but also in the attitude on the field.
“When you don’t point fingers when the going gets rough, that’s huge,” Smith said. “Nobody here is doing that.”
“Doing that” would have been easy following both Friday night and Saturday night’s losses to a Trojan team that entered the weekend seven games under .500 and hitting around .250 on the season.
Losing two of three to them was not in the plans.
“They had the best hitting weekend of their life,” Carter Aldrete said.
On Friday night it was a Devils loss mired in the struggles of 2017 and 2018’s defensive blunders. From dropped balls in the outfield to mishandles throws home, the Devils gave up unearned run after unearned run. It was an unearned loss but one ASU could not have deserved more.
Saturday was much in the same. The Devils lost and it was on the pitching and the defense.
“A lack of attention,” the apt description offered by Ben Greenspan.
Whether it’s fatigue from the season, the minute size of the roster or a combination of both, ASU showed weakness over the weekend.
The errors in the USC series alone accounted for 25 percent of the team’s defensive blunders in 2019. It was a night and day difference between what the team had been all year and what they were in southern California.
Positively speaking, the win on Sunday is a glimpse at how productive the team is when in reality they are not at their best. They put up 11 runs, Spencer Torkelson took a full-count fastball to the opposite field for a home run, and the nine-hole hitter Drew Swift collected two base hits.
The offense was on Sunday what it has been all year: a force.
“When we were winning, that was us,” Aldrete said. “We are a positive team and when we go through sloppy stretches we know we can get back to being us.”
For the Sun Devils, each contest needs to be taken as an opportunity to prepare what they will see when looking into the reflective piece of glass after each game. The contest’s result and the journey to it are the preemptive measures the team can take to changing what the mirror will show.
With each mistake or run surrendered the team muddies their reflection, their identity. For a small but mity squad of ball-players, identity is in their control and after this last week, they know it’s time to take the reigns.
Arizona State is a strong team in the present with a past trying its best to haunt them. Over the last week, it was a tug-of-war between past and present, trying to get back to where they want and need to be.
