ASU Baseball: Wednesday practice report

(Photo: Dominic Cotroneo/WCSN)

Five games in seven days is no easy stretch, and head coach Tracy Smith knows his personnel’s focus at the end of the regular season.

“Just making sure we’re getting our work in and with the quick turnaround for tomorrow’s game, it’s more of just the technical stuff. We weren’t really pleased with some of the at-bats yesterday so just getting some guys some work.”

For Wednesday’s practice at the friendly confines of Phoenix Muni Stadium, moods were light just like the clothes. On the surface, it was a laid back batting practice in shorts with pitchers working on their pickoffs on the back field and doing agility drills. But the mood was business-like. Hit-and-run drills were taken seriously; corner infielders were taking grounders; and there was work in the cages.

Skip continued, “I would say ‘the hay’s in the barn’ at this point. We’re not going to make many historical changes on guys so you know, just trying to keep them sharp.”

One change was made though.

Ryan Kellogg will start Thursday’s series opener against the Washington State Cougars. The Canadian wasn’t the only one with a promotion for this weekend–Brett Lilek will start following him on Friday with Seth Martinez falling to Sunday. Smith has always said a change in the rotation would be performance-based, and both Kellogg and Lilek threw nine innings in their starts against UCLA. Lilek took it a step further with his Pac-12 pitcher of the week honors.

Now to some notes from the practice and from Smith’s presser.

• No new update from last night on Eder Erives’ condition after he was struck in the face by a line drive in New Mexico on Tuesday. His condition/availability will update when the swelling on the left side of his face goes down.

• Jordan Aboites returned to second base on Tuesday, and he’s been in and out of the lineup as of late. Expect to see more of him at third after the Sun Devils failed to record an out on four bunts defended against the Lobos. “I think he makes good reads,” said Smith in regards to Aboites. “He’s more athletic, does a better job coming in on the ball. They laid four bunts down, and we made two improper reads and it can’t happen. Fortunately it happened out of conference but that stuff cannot happen if we want to put ourselves in the best position to win on the weekend.”

• The RPI was kind to the Sun Devils, while projections were not. ASU slid two spots in the RPI ranks to No. 27, still within striking distance to host a regional. ASU controls its own destiny with Washington State coming to town this weekend, and a trip to Dedeaux Field to take on USC the weekend after. Currently, there’s a logjam in the Pac-12 standings for second place. The Devils, Bears, and Trojans are all knotted up. “I’m not trying to be a politician on this stuff, but if you’re second place in the Pac-12, if the committee looked at the series and how that were to go and for us to second place we would have to win the next two weekends,” Smith said.  “So what, we would have three losses: TCU, Cal, and UCLA. Two top three teams at the time, and one team that got hot and got their starters back and playing really good baseball.” Cal hosts USC this weekend, then travels to Corvallis to face the Beavers–a tough finish but they hold the tiebreaker over ASU with their series victory.

• The two projections released today have ASU on the road for the regional round and USC hosting in L.A. D1Baseball.com sends the Sun Devils to Champaign, IL to face the red hot Fighting Illini with Bradley and Saint Louis rounding out the regional. Perfect Game also sends ASU to the midwest, but to Iowa City, IA to meet the Hawkeyes with NC State and Central Michigan.

Dominic Cotroneo is a Pac-12 Digital broadcaster for ASU Baseball and you can follow him on Twitter @Dom_Cotroneo

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