(Photo: Sammy Nute/WCSN)
PHOENIX — There’s only one word that could describe the second inning for Arizona State baseball. That word is dominance.
In the top of the second inning, true freshman pitcher Thomas Burns was coming off of his first inning at the collegiate level. The right-handed pitcher started off the night with one strikeout. He responded by notching two strikeouts in the second inning.
“There’s a reason that we have him on Friday,” head coach Willie Bloomquist said. “For a freshman to keep his composure the way he does and change speeds when he needs to and not get so into a pattern is good.”
On Friday, Burns became the first ASU true freshman to start a season-opener since Ike Davis in 2006. That year, Davis made a memorable first impression, winning Pac-10 Freshman of the Year Honors.
When ASU went up to bat, it looked like the game was going to be a low-scoring affair. However, that wasn’t the case, as the Sun Devils notched five runs in the second inning alone.
The first run came from first baseman Jacob Tobias, who hit a home run to right field to put ASU up 1-0. This was followed by another home run from outfielder Isaiah Jackson on a two-run blast to extend the lead to three runs. From there, third baseman Nu’u Contrades and sophomore outfielder Kien Vu gifted the Sun Devils a sac fly and double respectively. The total numbers for the Sun Devils in the second inning was five runs, five hits, one error, and one left on base.
“After the first inning I was like,’man we’re in for a dogfight,’” Bloomquist said. “We came out in the second inning and put some really good swings on a really good arm so I was extremely pleased with the offensive output.”
ASU entered the third inning with an early five-run lead that set the tone for the rest of the night, as the Sun Devils went on to win the game 11-6.
The second inning was followed by another strong frame, in which ASU scored three runs. As with the second inning, freshman pitcher Thomas Burns notched two more strikeouts. Burns replicating the strikeouts total was impressive considering the amount of time spent in the dugout prior to the third inning due to the barrage of runs scored by the hitters.
“Pitching when it’s even is definitely a lot harder than pitching when you’re up a ton,” Burns said.
This would be his second and final two-strikeout inning of the game. Burns finished the contest with seven total strikeouts in five innings pitched — a debut that left the locker room impressed.
“That dude can chuck it,” sophomore center fielder Isaiah Jackson said. “He usually lives off his heater and struggles a little bit getting up in the zone, but he just went back to his slider, and he was in the zone often.
Jackson finished the night with three hits, the same amount of hits he had in his first six games last season.
“I was really confident going into this year,” Jackson said. “I adjusted the work I put in this offseason so I was just ready to get going.”
ASU went on to score just three more runs after going up 8-0. However, there was a sense that the game was over by the bottom of the seventh when Brandon Compton advanced to home plate, giving the Sun Devils an 11-1 lead. Compton, a redshirt freshman, saw his first hits as a Sun Devil tonight, the first of those being a home run.
“It was huge to me,” Compton said. “Just makes you feel like all the hard work you did paid off.”
After the game was over, the locker room atmosphere was nothing short of electric, a clear indicator of how thrilled the players were to be out on the field again and come away with a win in the end. Isaiah Jackson expressed that he was one of those players.
“There’s no better feeling than wearing the Devils across your chest,” he said.
