(Photo: Blaine McCormick/WCSN)
For the second season in a row, Arizona State baseball has struggled out of the gate to begin Pac-12 play, with a sweep at the hands of Oregon State and a series loss on the road at USC dropping the team to 1-5 in conference.
In the opening game of a three-game series against the UCLA Bruins (12-11, 5-2 Pac-12) from Phoenix Municipal Stadium Friday, a dominating opposing starter and untimely defensive miscues doomed ASU (11-13, 1-6 Pac-12) on its way to a 9-3 loss.
Junior Eli Lingos took the mound for Arizona State and ran into trouble early in the second inning, with three walks and a Carter Aldrete error assisting UCLA in jumping out to a 3-0 lead.
That would be the worst of the trouble for Lingos however, as he battled his way through the Bruin lineup to finish with 5.2 innings, combined with five hits, four runs (two earned) while striking out four and walking five.
“Not his best, by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s hard to say,” ASU head coach Tracy Smith said post-game. “Defensively it’s been a struggle. So when you’re out there making your pitches, you’re getting ground balls and you’re not getting outs, that compounds things.”
Had the Bruins been done scoring for the night at 3-0, the task at hand for the Sun Devil offense still would have been daunting: Bruin junior starter Griffin Canning was in control from his first pitch of the game, as he cruised his way through the Sun Devil lineup collecting nine strikeouts and allowing just two runs through 7.1 innings.
ASU was able to make it a game, as they pulled to within 4-3 after the bottom of the eighth inning thanks to a sacrifice fly from Aldrete, but the dam broke for UCLA in the top of the ninth.
The Bruins batted around in the frame, scoring five runs to turn a nail-biter into a cruise-control finish. Jake Bird worked around a two-out walk in the bottom of the ninth to nail down the victory for UCLA, their 5th in Pac-12 play.
Looking ahead to Game 2 of the series, freshman Chaz Montoya (2-1, 4.76 ERA) is slated to make his second career start for Arizona State against Moises Ceja (1-1, 2.39 ERA). First pitch is scheduled for 6:30.
Bobby Kraus is a baseball beat reporter for the Walter Cronkite Sports Network. You can follow him on Twitter @bobbykraus22
