Bloomquist confident in hot bats after mercy rule win over Texas Tech

(Photo: Sammi Maxwell/WCSN)

PHOENIX— With Arizona State baseball done with its Pac-12 regular season games, the Sun Devils will finish the regular season with a few non-conference matchups to get itself ready for the Pac-12 tournament next week, and the team looks about as ready as it can be.

ASU hosts Texas Tech and UNLV for three round-robin games at Phoenix Municipal Stadium over the next weekend, and it opened the event as the hosts with a bang on Thursday. The Sun Devils (30-24, 17-13 Pac-12) run-ruled Texas Tech (30-23, 12-17 Big-12) 21-5 in seven innings.

The Devils are riding their hottest streak of the year, lighting up the scoreboard with double digit runs in 11 of its last 14 games, including a pair of mercy rule victories against UC San Diego.

While impressive victories, UC San Diego is a recent addition to Division 1 baseball. However, Thursday’s run rule victory against Texas Tech is a lot more impressive considering that it is a Big 12 opponent that ASU will see more of as it moves to the conference next year.

The selection committee excluded ASU from the NCAA tournament last season — much to the chagrin of ASU head coach Willie Bloomquist. Last season the Sun Devils learned the effects of recency bias, and the third-year manager is hoping this type of victory can make his team look more favorable in the eyes of the committee.

“I’m not sure how they’re (the committee) going to do things there,” Bloomquist said. “I don’t mean that disrespectfully, I just mean there’s so many different calculations and things they look at. Apparently, as we were told last year, margin of victory — I guess — matters. I’ve never been one to really believe that. If you win the game, you win the game. I don’t care if it’s by a run or by 15 runs.”

“The way that we are playing down the stretch and in the fashion we’re doing it, I would hope people are taking notice because I don’t know too many pitching staffs that are eager to face this (offense) right now.”

The entire lineup was hot as it finished tied for a season high with 21 runs and 23 hits, both of which were set in the last home game against Washington on May 5, making it back-to-back home games with 20 or more runs at Phoenix Municipal. Three Sun Devils finished with at least four hits, including sophomore first baseman Jacob Tobias going 5-5 with two home runs and eight RBI, which is the fourth-most RBIs a Sun Devil had in a game in program history.

Tobias also had six RBI against Stanford last Sunday, so he is fulfilling his cleanup role to its full potential, leading the Devils to a 13-3 record over their last 16 games. The first baseman has 33 RBI in that span, and his coach credits consistency as to why Tobias is able to have a stretch like this.

“Shortening the negative times and expanding the positive times is what (Tobias) has done,” Bloomquist said. “Where in the past, there might be a rough stretch for three, four weeks. He’s put an end to it. If he did get in a little funk where it’s maybe just one or two games and then he puts an end to it and continues to get back to himself. That’s what I see in his growth and maturity.”

Bloomquist talked in the past about complete victories and what it would be like if the pitching and hitting and producing simultaneously, but it does not matter when the latter is playing like this. The pitching has been better of late with sophomore left-handed pitcher Ben Jacobs and senior right-handed pitcher Hunter Omlid solidifying themselves in the rotation, but the offense is what is winning games for the Devils.

The notion entering the season was that the lineup would be the strength of the team because there were only three returning pitchers from last year’s squad, but there were times in the middle of the season when the pitching was keeping the team in games and the lineup was not playing to its potential.

That sentiment certainly changed.

“We experienced it early in the year how big it can be for our offense, when we were struggling a little bit, when your pitching staff does really well. We’re very happy to repay that,” Tobias said. “We’ve seen all throughout baseball, if you have an offense that’s continuously in the dugout hitting, it makes it a lot harder for the other team to play the game and play right. It makes a huge difference and it gives us a lot of help with our pitching staff. We’re happy to do it.”

This offensive explosion is especially helpful when Jacobs did not have a great game with four runs allowed in four innings. However, the brunt of the damage was done in the first inning when the lefty allowed a bases-clearing double to Texas Tech junior third baseman Cade McGee to begin the game.

The sophomore’s struggled with command as he needed 80 pitches to get through four frames, allowing four walks and three hits, but he notched seven strikeouts and earned the win by pitching four innings in a seven-inning game.

Jacobs has been the Friday starter since freshman right-handed pitcher Thomas Burns went down with an injury, but Bloomquist moved him up to Thursday to get the proper rest for game two of the Pac-12 Tournament. ASU is in a tough spot where it needs to win these games, but also put itself in the best position for the Pac-12 Tournament.

“We are going to start (senior left-handed pitcher Connor) Markl tomorrow for an inning — or at most two — but we’re going to keep that outing very short for him. Just to keep him sharp and then he’ll be ready to start the opener on Tuesday,” Bloomquist said. “Omlid will follow him tomorrow and give us as much length as he can and then be ready to go a week from tomorrow on Friday, should we make it that far.

“That’s the plan, so we have our three starters mapped out for how we wanted it to for the tournament and it gave us as good an opportunity as we can to win these games this weekend as well.”