(Photo: Nicholas Badders/WCSN)
Tactfully, the owner of the versatile tool removed it from the pocket in which it waited. Its blades sat sharpened, its pliers strong and its tweezers tucked away still useful but unnoticed at the top of the Swiss Army knife.
The knife’s name is flexible: multitool, multi-blade even switchable pliers. But, their meanings are all ultimately the same. It is versatile and it is useful. All of its tools serve a purpose and do their jobs well.
In a Swiss Army knife, the owner gets an all-in-one package of the essential working tools needed to go about a job. But, perhaps the most important quality of the tool’s many gadgets is reliability.
For Arizona State baseball, the bullpen and the batter’s box are the pockets, coach Tracy Smith the owner, and freshman Erik Tolman the multitool in his skipper’s back pocket.
His hitting, his pitching, and his fielding are all of the knife’s concealed values and all of them have been executed almost perfectly in 2019. They have been executed reliably, too.
“When the lights turn on so does Tolman,” Smith said in a press conference earlier in the year. “He puts a little extra behind the ball when they flick on the stadium lights.”
Tolman was recruited by Smith out of El Toro High School in Lake Forest, California as a two-way player.
On the mound he was electric, striking out 100 batters in 74 senior year innings while giving up just 56 hits.
In the field and in the batter’s box, Tolman’s skills stayed on par with those on the mound. In his senior year at El Toro, the 6’2″ Tolman hit .364 with six home runs and 21 RBI.
“When we recruited him and actually watched him play I think he homered,” Smith said. “We knew he was the real deal.”
Smith banked on those words early on in the 2019 campaign.
Quickly the freshman southpaw has become a staple in the bullpen.
He’s outpaced his fellow relievers in innings and games played and has rapidly become the team’s Alec Marsh in relief. Having become their ace when the game gets tough, Smith knows he can use Tolman to get out of sticky situations.
It took him just over a month into the season to give up his first extra-base hit, and through 35 games, 15 of which Tolman has pitched in, he’s given up just four earned runs. Through 32.1 innings pitched this year, Tolman’s ERA sits at 1.11, his WHIP at 1.237.
But, recruited as a two-way player, Smith wanted to give Tolman the opportunity to prove he was a capable Division I-caliber hitter.
In 17 collegiate at-bats, he’s done that.
During ASU’s midweek showdown against Seattle, Tolman was a day-of add to the lineup as the team’s designated hitter.
“Being a midweek game we wanted to give our normal catcher Sam Ferri a day off,” Smith said after Tuesday’s win against Seattle. “Because of that Lyle Lin caught the game.”
Lin is the Devils’ DH. Tolman their relief ace. On Tuesday those lines were officially blurred.
Tolman stepped up to the plate four times in the game, sending the ball over the fence in two of those appearances and collecting a hit in another. His batting average on the year bumped up to .437 and his RBI total climbed to five. The two homers were his first and second in 2019.
“I still do about 90 percent of the work the hitters do,” Tolman said after his offensive outburst. “If the pitchers do something I’ll go with them otherwise I’m with the hitters. I also come back after practice to hit in the cages for 30 minutes.”
Tolman’s internal clock beats twice. One rhythm for the plate and one for the mound. The tracks never cross paths and, with 20 games left in the regular season, that has clearly allowed the freshman to produce no matter what the role.
For Smith, Tolman is exactly like the Swiss Amry knife: for one tool, he gets many. Both the bench and the bullpen getting an extra piece.
For Tolman, it’s just business as usual. It’s something he’s been doing “his entire life” and it’s something he’ll continue to do for the foreseeable future. So long as he does, Sun Devil baseball will gladly keep him in their pockets.
