Good, bad and ugly versus UCLA

With the heat rising in Tempe, the No. 24 Arizona State Sun Devils are getting into the heart of their schedule and conference play. ASU took on fourth ranked UCLA this weekend and took two of the three games from the Bruins. The Sun Devils had a productive weekend against a top ten team and had a lot of things to take from the series.

The Good

The Sun Devils (15-8-1) got solid outings from Friday and Saturday night starters Trevor Williams and Ryan Kellogg. On Friday, Williams bounced back from two rough starts against Washington State and Oregon State. He went seven and two-thirds innings with six strikeouts and gave up only one run, which came in his final inning of work in ASU’s 4-1 win over the Bruins (18-6). After coming off of a no-hitter in Corvallis, freshman Ryan Kellogg gave up his first earned runs since his start against Arkansas on March 2^nd.

Kellogg gave up four runs in his eight innings as he also struck out five Bruins. After giving up those runs, the microscopic ERA of Kellogg rose from 0.71 to 2.18. Not bad for an 18-year-old kid playing in his first season of Division I college baseball. Despite this past start, the young Canadian is having possibly the greatest freshman season ever by an ASU pitcher. It’s been 13 years since an ASU freshman started the season 6-0.

The Sun Devils continue to use the hard throwing right-handed freshman Ryan Burr as the heir apparent to Jake Barrett and the closer role. Burr recorded his fourth and fifth saves this weekend as he went two innings, fanned three and walked three as well.

ASU’s timely hitting is starting to get hot especially the bats of Kasey Coffman, James McDonald and Jake Peevyhouse. When the Bruins scored, the Sun Devils tended to answer them in the following frame.

Coffman went 5-14 with two home runs and six RBIs in the series. McDonald has been fantastic at the three spot in the lineup for the Devils. The junior is hitting just under .300 and he went 4-11 on the weekend with three RBIs.

Peevyhouse has been on fire as he has climbed to third on the team in batting average with .320. He had a play worthy of SportCenter’s Top Ten Plays where Peevyhouse flipped over a wall by the bullpen to snag a fly ball on Friday. The leftfielder had a decent weekend going one for four on Friday and two for five with two RBIs on Saturday.

The Bad and Ugly (All in One)

While the front end of the rotation is ASU’s strong point, the backend is still a question mark for the Sun Devils. At the beginning of the season, the starting rotation was projected to be Williams, Adam McCreery and the Sunday starter role would be given to the most proven freshman. Now it seems that the Sunday role could become a pitcher by committee and McCreery’s job to lose.

The 6-foot-8 lefty from La Verne, California is not having a good year to say the least. He has struggled with control issues the entire season. McCreery has posted an 8.22 ERA with a 1-3 record and opposing hitters are hitting .348 off of him.

He is not going deep into games either. In his last three starts, McCreery has only thrown six and two-thirds innings and in his Saturday start against the Bruins, he did not get out of the first inning. ASU would go on to lose that game in extra innings.

The Sun Devils have to solve this issue before their bullpen gets overworked as they go deeper into the schedule. This issue will not help them with these midweek games and in key conference series.

Head coach Tim Esmay noted in the Saturday press conference that he needs freshman pitcher Brett Lilek to come back from injury quickly because “he’s a bullet we haven’t been able to use.”

Arizona State will fly on out to Kansas to take on the Wichita State Shockers on Tuesday and Wednesday.

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