Photo: Travis Whittaker/WCSN
After each game, it has become routine. The Devils have won, the players shook hands on the field and retreat to the clubhouse. Triumphant music subsequently pumps through the underground halls of Phoenix Municipal Stadium and Tracy Smith, happy but unwilling to convey it, steps into the press room.
He sits down.
Smith waits, staring at the people in front of him, for the first question to come.
It does.
The silence is broken and questions are asked. They are relatively the same as the ones from the days before but none ever identical. Then, the question. It is retooled with different words but it always means the same thing.
“Really doesn’t take much for you to use everyone on your roster, huh,” one reporter said.
Smith knows that and his answer, reworded like the question, relays the same and consistent message.
“We know we are small,” Smith says. “We don’t have the same roster luxuries as other teams.”
It’s true. 27 players, 12 of them are pitchers, the remaining 15 are batters. Two of them have pitched and played the field, the others have the potential to follow suit.
But, ‘small and mighty’ has been their motivation. Through seven games the team has not yet lost and in them, they have scored 91 total runs: the most in the country for any Division I school who has played as many matches.
They have done that with a lineup that knows it will hit. In their 3-2 win against UC Davis, starting pitcher Alec Marsh said he was never concerned about losing the game.
“There is no doubt in anybody’s mind on our team that we are going to hit during a game,” Marsh said. “We never thought we were losing.”
Hit during a game is a humble understatement. From Trevor Hauver in the leadoff spot through Drew Swift in the nine-hole, the Devils have collectively hit .398 on the young season.
ASU’s high powered offense will face Pepperdine tonight in a match that could be their first real test.
Pepperdine has always had the offense. Last year they finished with a record of 31-24, buoyed largely by their ability to get on base. That ability has transferred over to 2019.
The Waves have hit a respectable .255 as a team giving them a record of 3-3 on the year. Two of their three losses came against the nation’s best school in Vanderbilt in which they did a good job of staying in the game.
Across the two-game Vandy stretch, Pepperdine only surrendered 12 total runs, six on each night, while scoring a total of five.
When the Waves come to Tempe, they will look to continue their efforts displayed against Vanderbilt’s high octane offense against the scorching hot and undefeated Sun Devils.
Being that it is a mid-week game, the Devils will more than likely run with their bullpen staff to get the win. Brady Corrigan came out of the pen last week against San Diego for 2.2 innings where he really shined. Erik Tolman has also been a quiet star for the Devil’s relief staff.
Against Pepperdine, ASU will be eased into a schedule that will slowly get tougher. This weekend it will be Michigan State visiting Phoenix, but next week the Devils will be tasked with one of the West Coast’s best programs in Cal State Fullerton. But, for now, small and mighty will look to continue their fast pace start to 2019 against the Waves.
