ASU rides standout pitching to series-opening win

(Photo: Maya Diaz/WCSN)

PHOENIX – As Arizona State entered play against Baylor Friday for their final series in April, its pitching staff had surrendered 37 runs in their previous four games, including 10 in a disheartening midweek loss to New Mexico State two days prior.

The Sun Devils have been susceptible to catastrophic pitching performances many times this season, and have been fortunate that their potent offensive attack has generally kept them within reach in high-scoring games. ASU’s lineup was brilliant once again, but the big story out of Phoenix Municipal Stadium was the incredible bounce-back effort from the arms on the mound.

No. 25 ASU (29-14, 12-7) rode a masterful start from junior lefty Cole Carlon and three nearly perfect bullpen innings to a series-opening 11-2 victory over the Baylor Bears (22-19, 9-10) Friday, coupled with their usual strong offensive output.

“Good bounce back game, top to bottom, in all facets tonight by our guys,” head coach Willie Bloomquist said. “Refreshing to see, after what has been going on.”

Carlon, coming off what Bloomquist called “probably the best start of his career” against BYU last week in which he struck out 11 and allowed only three baserunners, was nearly as effective in Friday’s action. He matched his strikeout total from his last start against the Bears, and conceded just a pair of runs on four hits across his six innings of work.

“I felt good commanding the zone with all my pitches tonight, just making sure I was staying mentally with my process every pitch and making sure I was going right after them every single time”, Carlon said.

The standout left-hander, who reached 99 miles per hour on his fastball Friday, has unquestionably been the Sun Devils’ best pitcher this season, and his dominance could not have come at a better time for ASU. His only blemishes in the game were two long balls from Baylor’s junior infielders, JJ Kennett and Travis Sanders. Outside of those two swings, Carlon stranded or retired every other Bears hitter.

“They got him a couple times,” Bloomquist said. “The Sanders kid, he’s a good player. He got him to right center on a pretty good pitch, and the catcher ran into one there for a homer to left. But you know, outside of that, he threw the ball outstanding, was pretty much in control most of the night.”

Senior left-hander Sean Fitzpatrick was flawless in his two relief innings, facing the minimum and constantly getting ahead of Baylor hitters. He threw a first pitch strike to five of his six batters faced, and sat down four of those six via strikeout.

“It’s just a mentality, understanding it’s one pitch at a time, you execute the pitch at hand, and then you move on to the next one,” Fitzpatrick said. “Whatever the result is, it’s done with and I can’t change it, so just moving on to the next pitch.”

In the ninth, sophomore righty Eli Buxton put the finishing touches on the outstanding pitching performance, surrendering a walk and striking out two in a scoreless inning.

In totality, those three Sun Devil arms struck opposing hitters out in 17 of their 29 at-bats, nearly a sixty percent clip. They also kept the Bears’ most dangerous bat in check the entire night. The fearsome senior first baseman Tyce Armstrong, who tied an NCAA record when he hit three grand slams in one game for Baylor earlier this year, went 0-3 with a walk and fell victim to two of Carlon’s 11 K’s.

Although the men on the mound were the highlight of the contest, the Sun Devil offense kept on raking in the complete team effort.

Sophomore second baseman Beckett Zavorek enjoyed his first multi-homer game Friday to head the Sun Devil attack, leading off the second and eighth innings with solo blasts.

“It was just good to go out there and put some good swings on the ball and get the win”, Zavorek said.

Despite the rare power display from Zavorek, Bloomquist humorously stressed his second baseman’s need to stay true to his approach postgame.

“Please don’t tell him he’s a home run hitter,” Bloomquist joked. “That’s not what he needs. He needs to stay in the middle of the field and hit line drives. And those home runs happen as a result of catching it in the zones that he’s supposed to. So when we start trying to do that, it doesn’t work very well.”

ASU batters left the yard on five instances Friday, as junior infielders Nu’u Contrades and Dominic Smaldino joined fifth-year outfielder Dean Toigo with one apiece.

Smaldino also doubled and paced the Sun Devils in RBIs during the contest with three.

ASU was able to scratch across runs in six of their eight possible innings and constantly put pressure on Baylor’s pitching. Were it not for two untimely double plays, the Sun Devils may well have enacted the run rule and ended the series-opening tilt early.

Golden Spikes and Big 12 Conference Player of the Year award contender Landon Hairston, the star sophomore outfielder for ASU, had a seldom-seen quiet showing. Although usually the catalyst for ASU generating runs, he reached base on Friday only once, going 1-5 with two strikeouts. He singled to lead off the game, but was cut down trying to steal second a few pitches later on one of the aforementioned double plays.

Hairston’s stellar season carries not only bids at national and conference awards, but also the ASU history books well. In the team’s previous game against NMSU, he hit the 24th and 25th homers of his remarkable campaign, which moved him into a tie at second atop the program’s single-season home run leaderboard. Mitch Jones holds the school record with 27, a mark that has stood since 2000.

The Sun Devils will look to collect their 30th win of the year and move to 2-0 in the three-game set versus Baylor Saturday night, with Landon Hairston chasing history and sophomore righty Taylor Penn opening on the hill.

“I think he’s ready to go, we got a lot of length behind him, so we’ll start with him and see how far he can get us, and we’ll go from there”, Bloomquist said.