(Photo: Dominic Cotroneo/WCSN)
It took 11 innings, but Arizona State earned its sixth walk-off win of the season, a 6-5 victory to win the series on senior night against the Washington State Cougars.
Andrew Snow delivered the decisive blow, an RBI single with one out in the 11th off of Cougars closer Ian Hamilton.
Although it was Snow’s first career walk-off, it was the second career game-winning hit in extra innings for the freshman. His first was a home run that came against Utah.
“I was about halfway down to first and I was thinking, he’s not going to get there,” Snow said about his hit. “And then I see Trever score and it was awesome, I was pumped up.”
After being shutout last night, Tracy Smith opted to change up the Sun Devils lineup, switching David Greer and Colby Woodmansee in the order as well as giving starts to Christopher Beall and Dalton Dinatale.
Both Beall and Dinatale had struggled to receive playing time after being surpassed in the depth chart by Joey Bielek and R.J. Ybarra, respectively.
“Their starter statistically eats up right-handers,” Smith said of the move. “We wanted to get as many of the left-handed bats in there as we could.”
The order switch-up wasn’t major but more surprising, if anything. Woodmansee has started 45 out of 50 games in the three spot in the order, but was hitting only .167 in his previous nine games. He went 1-for-6, while Greer finished 0-for-5 with two strikeouts.
“I don’t think Colby was seeing the baseball as well in his at-bats,” Smith said. “He has really been struggling lately and David has been putting together consistent at-bats. I also wanted to take pressure off of Woodmansee in the three hole. It didn’t work, but he (Woodmansee) is a good hitter and is just in a bit of a slump right now, but he will come around.”
ASU got the scoring started quickly, putting up four runs in the first inning off of Cougars starter Ryan Walker, who only lasted one inning. Brian Serven drove in two runs with a double and Trever Allen followed that with his third home run of the season. It was a fitting hit for the senior Allen in one of his final home games. The storybook ending was complete when he ended up scoring the game-winning run.
“I’ve been here for so long that it was very emotional at the beginning of the game,” Allen said of how he was feeling about senior night. “It started evening out later. I’ve loved my experience here and I thank everyone that has been a part of it.”
During the game, Allen joined the exclusive 20 home run, 100 RBI and 200 hit club at ASU, becoming just the 17th Sun Devil to reach those marks. He described the accomplishment simply as “awesome.”
Seth Martinez was not spectacular on the mound, but did not surrender the early lead he was given. The right-hander struck out six batters and allowed six hits and three earned runs over five innings pitched. The big blemish in his outing was a two-run home run hit by Ian Sagdal in the sixth inning.
Martinez was moved back two spots in the rotation for the first time since being entrusted with the Friday starter job. He is now behind Ryan Kellogg and Brett Lilek in the rotation.
“He’s a different type of pitcher,” Smith said. “He doesn’t have the overpowering stuff that those other guys (Lilek and Kellogg) have, so usually the second or third time through the order, people starting getting a pretty good beat on him, but he did what he was supposed to do. He got us through five, and it wasn’t a sloppy five, I thought it was a good five, but I’ll take that from him any time.”
Much like the lineup, Smith also chose to manage the bullpen differently than he has in the past, putting in closer Ryan Burr in the seventh inning in a two-run game rather than the ninth. His decision backfired, as Burr allowed the Cougars to tie the game on a double from Ben Roberts in the seventh.
However, the reliable right-hander settled down and did not allow any more damage over the five innings he pitched. The five frames were a career-high for him in relief. He also finished with a career-high seven strikeouts, and provided a huge lift to a thin bullpen that has been worked extensively over the past couple of weekends.
Smith said after the game that he only has about five relievers that he can rely on, and that led to Burr entering the game in the seventh inning.
“Our ‘pen is non-traditional at this point. I wish I could tell you that we had guys with clearly defined roles as the middle reliever and setup man, but we don’t. It hasn’t played out that way.”
The Sun Devils struggled mightily to score with runners in scoring position the rest of the way.
They put two runners on base every inning from the sixth inning on, but didn’t score until the 11th. They also loaded the bases with no outs in the 10th inning, but could not push the game-winning run across the board. All told, ASU stranded 12 runners in total from the sixth through the tenth inning.
Up until Snow’s walk-off, the Sun Devils were shut down by Cougars closer Ian Hamilton, who struck out eight batters and allowed one unearned run. His masterful work was reminiscent to that of David Berg of UCLA, who refused to surrender the game-winning run to ASU in extra innings last Saturday.
Yet the Sun Devils continued to tinker with their approach against Hamilton as he progressed deeper into his outing.
“He was throwing hard for sure,” Allen said. “You don’t normally face a guy that is sitting at 95 miles per hour too often for a long time, especially with a plus slider. As a right handed hitter, you try and hit the fastball, because after he struck me out with a slider in my first at-bat, I realized I couldn’t get to that pitch anymore. So I was just hunting the fastball, and that’s what the whole team was trying to do too.”
Despite the strenuous games, Smith happily accepted the crucial series win.
“We haven’t played the best baseball lately. But if you take that in and of itself and say if you would like to be in that position (2nd place in the Pac-12) with one week to go, my answer would be yes. Our perspective at this point is that we feel like we have a lot of baseball left to play, and I’m proud that we got out of here with a series win. It may not have been the prettiest one, but it was a series win.”
ASU will play an out-of-conference game as their final home game on Tuesday night against Abilene Christian, before traveling to USC for a series with strong implications both for the Pac-12 standings and NCAA Tournament seedings.
