(Photo: Madison Sorenson/WCSN)
PHOENIX — The pitcher’s mound becomes a lonely place when the bases become loaded and the scoreboard shows zero outs. Sunday, Arizona State junior right-hander Jaden Alba knew it better than anyone.
After a hit and an error boarded the first two runners of the fifth inning, Alba couldn’t field a ground ball in time to gun down freshman right fielder Dylan Fitzsimmons, placing himself in a forsaken, bases-loaded predicament.
Yet, apparently unbothered, Alba licked his fingers, dried them on his back pant leg, and went to work getting out of the mess.
Arizona State’s (7-0) pitching staff worked itself into and out of numerous jams throughout the early stages of its 16-6 sweep-securing win over St. John’s (1-6). The Sun Devils offense ended up having a field day at Phoenix Municipal Stadium, but if the arms hadn’t been able to get themselves out of the sticky situations they put themselves in, the final score could’ve looked remarkably different.
“We’re getting ourselves into trouble,” head coach Willie Bloomquist said. “And we’re finding ways to get ourselves out with limited damage.”
Limited damage was the name of the game for Alba in the fifth. With his Sun Devils leading by a 5-2 margin, a big hit would’ve been able to tie the game, and the biggest hit of them all would’ve given the Red Storm the lead.
Alba started to escape the predicament by getting junior second baseman Ayden Frey to chase a slider outside the zone to cap off a six-pitch battle.
Getting out of the frame without at least one run crossing the plate was always going to be a difficult task, though, and Alba had to trade an out for a run on a sacrifice fly off the bat of redshirt sophomore catcher Adam Agresti before ending the inning by inducing a groundout.
Alba had indeed escaped with limited damage, ending his day with only two unearned runs given up – the other coming in the third inning when a fielding error by sophomore third baseman Beckett Zavorek resulted in a runner he had walked aboard crossing the plate – over 2.2 innings pitched despite giving up two hits and two walks during that span.
“He did a good job settling in there as best he could,” Bloomquist said. “(He) gave us three innings of work there that we needed and bridge the gap to the backend guys that we had anticipated to use today.”
Alba had to operate as a bridge guy due to a second consecutive disappointing start from sophomore left-handed Sunday starter Easton Barrett.
The Utah native entered the weekend finale coming off an outing to forget the prior against Omaha, when he managed just 1.2 innings, giving up six walks and four earned runs in the process.
And while his performance against St. John’s was better, he still couldn’t locate the strike zone, recording just 25 strikes on 52 pitches and walking four before getting pulled with one out in the third.
“It hasn’t come out like we were hoping,” Bloomquist said. “This raises a little bit more concern today with a couple of them that just haven’t been real sharp. His ball hasn’t been exploding out of his hand like it was this fall and this spring.”
It was obvious that Barrett was wild from the start, walking both senior outfielder Jon LeGrande and Raifstanger in the first, and while he did get out of a two-on situation, it was only after a pitcher-friendly strike three call in a full count against Fitzsimmons.
The second was more of the same for Barrett, allowing a leadoff walk to Frey and a single to Agresti before a bunt moved the two base runners into scoring position with only one out. Still, Barrett was able to work out of the jam once again.
After falling behind to LeGrande before recording an out and walking Raifstanger to start the third, however, Bloomquist had seen enough, calling upon Alba to get ASU out of the inning.
Alba did, in fact, do that, but not before walking two batters of his own, allowing a Frey sac fly to score Raifstanger – a run that Barrett was responsible for – and giving up one of his two unearned runs on the Zavorek error.
“We’re going to need Easton to be good,” Bloomquist said. “Whether or not that’s in a starting role or in a different role, we’ll determine that as we get through these next couple games and then see where that leaves us.”
After Barrett and Alba, the pitching for the Sun Devils was mostly solid. Sophomore righty Taylor Penn had to work around two base knocks in his lone inning of work, but junior and sophomore right-handers Wyatt Halvorson and Finn Edwards, who was making his ASU debut, both struck out two and didn’t allow any on during their single inning outings.
Problems didn’t start to arise again until the ninth, when sophomore righty Eli Buxton gave up three hits, a walk and a wild pitch to bring in three. It was a jam that he couldn’t get out of, but with the Sun Devils still leading by 10 and senior right-hander Nick Anello able to work around traffic to slam the door, it hardly mattered in the end.
Going forward, though, it very well could.
Good offenses are going to get their fair share of hits, but teams supplement that by providing them with free passes as well. The eight walks, as well as the staggering four errors the defense recorded, even if only two of them impacted the scoring, could’ve spelled disaster for ASU if it were facing any of the four SEC teams it’ll be playing over a five-game stretch starting Tuesday.
“These things that we have to get cleaned up will rear their heads a lot more against better teams,” Bloomquist said. “We can’t afford to have mental lapses … it’s going to be a lot tougher competition. As we move forward this week, we got good teams that are lined up against us.”
