(Photo: ASU Athletics)
Tennessee head coach Dave Serrano left the dugout several times on Saturday night against Arizona State until eventually he was forced to leave it for good.
Earning an early trip to the showers in the bottom of the sixth inning after arguing multiple calls, however, prompted a stern three-run response in the seventh from his Volunteers that gave them a lead they would not relinquish in a 6-5 victory over the Sun Devils.
Tennessee reliever Drake Owenby held off an ASU rally in the ninth to earn his fourth save of the season. The maroon-and-gold had the tying run at second and the winning run at the plate with two outs in the ninth but Owenby got Nate Causey to fly out to left to end the ball game.
Three errors plagued the Sun Devils in the seventh inning and gave way to three two-out runs for the Vols. Taylor Smart doubled in Nate Maggio to tie the game at 3-3 and then scored the go-ahead run in the following at-bat after ASU second baseman Tucker Esmay misplayed Scott Price’s ground ball. Smart scored from second and Price was safe on the play as a result of the error.
Tennessee plated another run in the inning off Will Maddox’s well-placed bunt down the third base line that scored Price.
Esmay was the culprit on two of his team’s three errors in a game with too many mistakes by the Sun Devils. Sophomore Ryan Kellogg threw a strong seven innings, allowing three earned runs on eight hits and striking out five, though was handed the loss, one which ASU coach Tim Esmay felt he didn’t deserve.
“That’s unfortunate because I thought that Kellogg threw really well tonight,” Tim Esmay said of the errors. “We’ve been making those plays, we really have been, but sometimes in baseball that catches up to you.”
Aside from the defensive miscues that contributed to two unearned runs against Kellogg, ASU also hurt their own cause with runners being gunned down on two separate occasions at home: Trever Allen off David Graybill’s single in the fourth inning and Graybill in the sixth off Christopher Beall’s single.
“Those are runs, anytime you get a chance to score runs [it’s important]. They did a good job of handling the baseball,” Esmay said of the plays at the plate. “Those are game changers, obviously, because those are a couple more runs that, with Kellogg’s outing, we might have been able to handle a couple of those bullets in the seventh.”
Andrew Lee gave up three runs over 4.1 innings while earning the victory for the Volunteers. Relievers Andrew Martin, Andy Cox and Owenby held ASU to two runs over the game’s final 5.2 innings to secure the win.
Arizona State jumped out to an early 1-0 lead when Graybill singled in Nate Causey in the second inning. Tennessee answered two innings later on Nick Senzel’s single to right, scoring A.J. Simcox to tie the game. They took the lead in the next at-bat on Vincent Jackson’s groundout to short. Maddox scored on the play.
The Sun Devils tied the game in the fifth when Jordan Aboites doubled in Esmay and took the lead back in the following at-bat off of Johnny Sewald’s single to center, which scored Aboites. Graybill, Causey and each had two hits and a run batted in for ASU. Dalton DiNatale also had two hits on the night.
Graybill reached base in all four of his at-bats, highlighting a performance that garnered praise from his coach.
“Graybill was great tonight. David was on it, he was relaxed. That kid can do some big things for us,” Esmay said of his first baseman. “I was really happy with him, he answered the bell tonight. He had been sitting for a little bit, but he came out and didn’t try and do too much and played really good baseball.”
Two competitive and high-spirited games to begin the weekend’s series have the atmosphere at Packard Stadium near playoff-levels, which is something that is not going unnoticed by Esmay and his team.
“The atmosphere has been great. Playing a team like this, it feels like playoff baseball. Everything matters, you can see both teams are into it,” the coach said. “To me it was another two teams who were getting after each other and waiting up to see who would open up the door and unfortunately we opened that door in the seventh inning.”
The rubber match of the series is set for tomorrow at 12:30 p.m.
“Tomorrow is a response day for us, it’s a chance to win the series and let this one go. It was a tough one tonight, our guys gave a great battle and had a chance to win that game and we just didn’t get that knock at the end,” Esmay added.
Darin Gillies (1-1, 6.75 ERA) is slated to start for Arizona State. Kyle Serrano (2-0, 3.29 ERA) will toe the rubber for Tennessee.
