PHOENIX – With the game tied at four apiece, the bases loaded and two outs in the bottom of the eighth, sophomore shortstop Beckett Zavorek stepped up to the plate with a chance to deliver a special moment in the early season for Arizona State. The Phoenix Municipal Stadium crowd stood on its feet, anticipating a potential pivoting moment.
As the count moved to 1-1, Zavorek swung his bat. When the ball reached home plate, a loud ping was released from the bat, and the ball squirted up the middle, knocking in two runs. Zavorek’s RBI single proved to be sufficient as ASU (3-0) completed the series sweep over Omaha (0-3) with a 6-4 win.
“It felt great,” Zavorek said. “To finally break open and get ahead in the game. We were playing from behind the whole game, but it shows the toughness we have as a team. We’re never out of a game.”
Zavorek opened the game 0-3, including striking out once, and had shown no signs of speeding up as he stepped into his eighth inning at-bat. Even with the struggles, when the lights were brightest, head coach Willie Bloomquist still put his trust in Zavorek to deliver.
“[Zavorek] has been great,” Bloomquist said, “He’s not going to come out and wow you with overwhelming athletic ability. He just plays baseball, and he’s good at it. In that situation, in the eighth, I bet on the kid. He hadn’t had a great day offensively, but some of those times you just bet on the kid and what’s inside.”
The sophomore’s winning moment is just one example of the Sun Devils resilience on Sunday. While ASU’s offense did start slow, its pitching started even slower. Sophomore pitcher Easton Barrett’s first outing of the season came to an end after just 1.2 innings, giving up four earned runs and walking six batters.
“Easton [Barrett] knows,” Bloomquist said of his performance. “He just had a mulligan today, and hopefully that is an outlier for him. The ball was coming out really well early. He was having a hard time finding the zone. He’ll get back to work.”
With Barrett’s short outing, the Sun Devils’ bullpen, often a point of weakness under Bloomquist, was tasked with keeping ASU in the game. Junior pitcher Jaden Alba did just that, hurling4.1 innings, only conceding the runs that were charged to Barrett’s baserunners.
“Jaden Alba did a great job calming the waters,” Bloomquist said. “The offense wasn’t stellar today. We had a bunch of base runners, but didn’t do a great job of situational hitting. But, we did enough to get it done.”
Once ASU was able to get its pitching game settled down, it turned to its offensive production in order to try to erase the 4-0 deficit. Sophomore catcher Brody Briggs was the first to step up, hammering a third-inning home run to open the scoring for the Sun Devils. Briggs’ presence behind the plate was a key piece in helping the ASU pitching staff settle down its command of the ball.
“[Briggs] overall energy kickstarted us, so the homer was the icing on the cake,” Bloomquist said. “From an offensive standpoint, he got us rolling a little bit. But I look at what he did behind the plate. He never once wavered in his energy behind the dish.”
Next in line to Briggs was fifth-year right fielder Dean Toigo. Toigo’s sixth-inning blast became his second of the weekend, along with forcing the Mavericks to take out starting pitcher Sam Beck, who had been almost untouchable through five.
“[Toigo] is starting to get it going a little bit,” Bloomquist said. “I’ve seen Dean when he’s really hot, like this fall. He’s not quite there yet, but he’s starting to show signs of life. When you are not locked in yet, and you hit a couple of homers and are still able to contribute the way you did this weekend, that’s a good sign.”
Toigo’s 2-for-5 performance put the Sun Devils in position to score the runs needed to come out on top. Unfortunately for ASU, it didn’t take advantage of many of those opportunities, including leaving Toigo stranded in a bases-loaded, no-outs situation. The Sun Devils finished the day 2-for-10 with runners in scoring position.
“There are plenty of things we can get better at,” Bloomquist said. “Throughout this weekend, there was some sloppy baseball. The positives are that we are sitting here 3-0, which is great. It certainly could be worse from a win-loss perspective, but you have to keep learning and growing.”
One of the areas Bloomquist hopes his team will clean up is the number of walks his pitcher gives up. The Sun Devils gave up nine walks Sunday, and totalled 17 for the weekend, even walking in the opening run Sunday.
“It’s going to be huge,” Bloomquist said of the pitching staff’s success, “Not just [Barrett], but everybody. A lot of guys have to get better. We put way too many free base runners on this weekend for my liking, and we can’t keep doing that. We’re going to get burned if we make a habit of that.”
Even with all of the shortcomings, ASU will be happy it was able to secure its second consecutive opening weekend series sweep. The Sun Devils will have Monday off before taking on Connecticut in a single game Tuesday at 6:35 p.m. MST.
“We will take the sweep,” Bloomquist said, “That’s a great way to start the year. But there’s some glaring stuff that we have to work on, clearly. We’ll get back to the drawing board and back to work tomorrow.”
