(Photo: Joey Plishka/WCSN)
TEMPE – Arizona State Baseball channeled its newfound anger – following a 7-5 loss to Grand Canyon on Tuesday – into its series opener against Washington on Friday.
ASU has battled stretches of inconsistency at the plate this year, and recently after getting trounced by No. 6 Oregon State to open up Pac-12 Conference play, the Sun Devils have been noticeably colder than normal at the dish. That didn’t stop them from unloading on the Huskies at home to open the weekend, as the Sun Devils nabbed their tenth win of the season with a 12-5 victory.
“We cut down on the strikeouts, which is something we’ve been trying to stress,” ASU head coach Willie Bloomquist said. “When you put the ball in play good things have a tendency to happen. That was a big thing for us tonight.
“I said it from the beginning on Tuesday, ‘I got to do a better job coaching.’ Something has got to change, and the way we’re doing it right now isn’t working. Hopefully today was a start in the right direction.”
The Sun Devils got started right away, jumping out to an early lead on a two-run single from freshman designated hitter Jacob Tobias after loading the bases on Washington sophomore starter Jared Engman with only one out. Tobias later whalloped his second home run of the season after seeing eight pitches leading up to his right-center field blast.
Tobias finished 4-for-5 with five runs batted in, making loud contact in every at-bat.
“I’ve been able to realize a lot of things that I’ve been doing wrong,” Tobias said. “Once it all starts clicking, things like that happen.”
The two-run shot was the first home run given up by Engman this season. Tobias was struggling coming in, sporting a .234 batting average, which he raised to .288 by the end of the night.
Back-to-back singles chased Engman from the game after just 2.1 innings, but with a chance to break things open following his departure, ASU left the bases loaded on redshirt sophomore second baseman Sean McLain’s strikeout.
ASU tallied two consecutive three-run innings between the third and the fourth, taking every chance they could to make up for all the emotions that surrounded Tuesday’s affair. Within that span, the Sun Devils tallied nine hits – two of which were for extra bases – while getting some help from some poor Washington defense.
Four errors were committed by the Huskies on the night, two of which resulted in run-scoring plays.
“Every run matters,” Tobias said. “If we can capitalize on every mistake the other team makes it’s even better for us. I think that going forward we’ll be well off keeping this mindset, mistakes like that will help us get better.”
Washington came in sporting the second-best earned run average in the Pac-12 at 3.25, in large part because of its bullpen. The Sun Devils jumped every arm the Huskies ran out on the mound, a good start to a weekend that will be tough should they not set an early tempo at the plate.
Bloomquist believes the anger-fueled momentum can carry over if ASU does what it did tonight.
“Tonight I told these guys, ‘Celebrate for 30-45 minutes but then it’s back to business at two tomorrow,’” Bloomquist said. “Any time you win or lose there’s things you can work on. They are the ones that have to go out and make the change and they have been.”
Another welcoming site for the Sun Devils was sophomore shortstop Hunter Haas’ plate appearance in the eighth inning – his first since he was removed from the series finale against BYU with a partially torn rotator cuff. Haas was brought home on an RBI double from redshirt sophomore center fielder Joe Lampe for ASU’s 12th and final run of the night.
“[Haas] can swing it just fine, he can run just fine and he can do everything else except for the throwing part,” Bloomquist said. “It’s important to keep him in the mix as much as we can, so we’ll continue to look for situations where we keep him in when we can.”
The offensive barrage was more than enough to support redshirt junior right-handed pitcher Kyle Luckham’s effort in place of redshirt junior left-hander Adam Tulloch, who opened on Tuesday. Luckham pushed through five innings, giving up four runs on seven hits and one walk.
The Huskies still managed to do some damage at the plate while he was out there, but the effort from the Sun Devils’ bullpen was noticeably better than it has been recently.
Redshirt senior right-hander Jacob Walker put together arguably his best outing of the season with four innings of relief. The first man he faced – redshirt sophomore third baseman Michael Snyder – took him deep for what ended up being his second homer of the night, and from then on Walker surrendered just one additional hit before shutting the door.
“That’s extremely valuable to have a guy like that,” Bloomquist said. “[Walker] doesn’t complain about his role, doesn’t over think it when his role changes, he doesn’t care. He wants the ball and he wants to do the best he can for his team. You got to have guys like that. The dude just goes out and competes and gets outs.”
After ASU’s two-run first, the Huskies responded with a pair of their own on Snyder’s two-run shot in the second inning. In the following frame, Washington grabbed the lead temporarily on a two out RBI single from redshirt sophomore first baseman Will Simpson, threatening to score more after loading the bases on an ensuing walk and single.
