(Photo: Samantha Maxwell/WCSN)
PHOENIX — During Arizona State baseball’s 10-9 bounce-back victory against South Dakota State on Wednesday, the Sun Devils found themselves in an early 7-0 deficit, but the bats came alive, resulting in eight unanswered runs.
Eventually sophomore left fielder Will Rogers found himself in a similar situation — bottom of the ninth with an opportunity to walk-off Phoenix Municipal Stadium. Rogers did exactly that, sending a rocket over the left field wall, completing the comeback win.
Friday’s outing was similar to Wednesday’s, with the exception of ASU holding a brief 1-0 lead. The advantage was short-lived, as UC Irvine’s bats came alive in the second inning, sparking a five-run inning.
As if to make sure enough damage was caused, the Anteaters continued their dominance in the third inning at the plate, tacking on six more runs and allowing only one ASU run in the second inning.
UC Irvine’s (8-1) lead would grow throughout the game, eventually culminating with a 16-6 win over ASU (6-3).
“In my mind, that’s four games in a row where we’ve kind of beat ourselves,” head coach Willie Bloomquist said. “We address that as a team shortly after the game. … We got a chance to be okay if we quit beating ourselves. And I think at the end of the day when you don’t do the fundamental things right, it gets exposed.”
ASU’s offense was able to put runs on the board courtesy of the long ball but failed to do so with runners on base. The offense put three balls over the outfield walls, but all occurred without a runner on base. When a runner did reach scoring position, the Sun Devils foiled at the plate, achieving two hits on seven attempts.
“We’re still punching out a little too much to my liking,” Bloomquist said. “But at the end of the day, we’re starting to get more and more baserunners, which is good. It’s a matter of time before (runners cross the plate). If we continue to get baserunners, we’re going to hopefully put up some crooked numbers throughout a game. So that part of it — I guess, if you could take some positive out of tonight — the hitting was a little bit better.”
As the offensive production failed to get runs across the plate, the defense failed to keep opposing runners from making their way around. During the first inning, freshman shortstop Luke Hill allowed a routine grounder to roll through his legs and into left field. Had Hill made the play, it would have gotten left-handed pitcher Ross Dunn out of the inning with only three batters faced, versus five Dunn faced.
“Can’t harp on it enough — just attention to detail,” sophomore catcher Ryan Campos said. “I mean, it’s just little things like [the pitcher fielding pitches] in practice. They can get monotonous, but a team like that — a West Coast team — they’re gonna make you field bunts, soft hit balls and stuff. Not to single it out that it was a [the pitcher fielding pitches] or whatever, but it’s just a little stuff. You give good teams an inch and they’ll take a run. Just sharpening up on that.”
Although UC Irvine couldn’t capitalize on the first-inning error, they wouldn’t allow another error to go uncontested. Fast forward to the third inning, where junior second baseman Luke Keaschall allowed a ball to roll into right field, with a striking similarity to Hills’ error two innings earlier. This time, the Anteaters scored six runs in the inning.
Dunn’s night ended with five earned runs and five strikeouts in 2 2/3 innings pitched. But it was the self-inflicted wounds that would allow nine runs to cross the plan with Dunn on the mound. During a full count in the second inning, Dunn walked sophomore second baseman Will Bermudez on a pitch that could have been called a strike. During the next at-bat, Dunn gave up a triple to junior left fielder Caden Kendle, driving in three more runs.
“We have to be mentally tougher on the mound to be able to overcome that,” Bloomquist said. “And that’s to me what’s most disappointing that I saw tonight is just one pitch — that an umpire may or may not have missed — doesn’t dictate the whole inning.
“To me, you got to be tougher than that mentally to just keep attacking the zone and going right after the next pitch. You can’t let one call that you thought was a bad call take you out of your whole entire inning. We got to be a little bit more mature than that.”
Campos added: “He was fine stuff-wise. Just kind of got sped up a little bit — some mistakes behind him, some mistakes on the mound — little things, they make a big difference.”
The errors ASU committed on Friday night are considered to be routine plays and self-inflicted wounds against them. Bloomquist explained the team has gone over the situations leading up to the errors, citing execution as the culprit.
“To me, I’ll just stick with the lack of concentration. Because I think that’s all it is. You tell me we’re not capable of throwing the ball 47 feet to second base or catching the ball as we’re touching first base, I’ll call you a liar. They’re capable of doing that.”
