Sun Devils Can’t Overcome Early Deficit, Lose Pac-12 Tournament Opener

(Photo: Spencer Barnes/WCSN)

SCOTTSDALE — Arizona State baseball has a knack for comeback victories and almost completed one of its best ones yet, but it fell short in the Pac-12 Tournament’s opening game.

As the No. 5 seed in the tournament, ASU was expected to take care of No. 8 Stanford on Tuesday, especially considering it had swept the Cardinal less than two weeks ago and also had its ace on the mound with senior left-handed pitcher Connor Markl. Instead, the Sun Devils fell into a big hole early and found themselves hoping to climb out.

Stanford (32-25, 17-13 Pac-12) plastered eight runs onto the scoreboard in the fourth to take the commanding lead and while ASU (21-32, 11-19 Pac-12) chipped away in the later innings, it was not enough as it lost 8-7.

This was supposed to be the easier game in Pool B play with No. 2 Oregon State as the opponent for Thursday, but now the Sun Devils put themselves in a difficult spot to play in the Pac-12 semifinals on Friday — much less make the NCAA Tournament.

ASU head coach Willie Bloomquist thought his team played well except for that tumultuous fourth inning, which was all the Cardinal needed to come out victorious.

“We opened the door and they took advantage of mistakes,” Bloomquist said. “Other than that, they had one inning where they put together runs when we gave them extra outs. Other than that, I thought our pitching was great. Put up seven runs (and) we had some baserunners. Only difference was that we didn’t come up with a big hit when we had the opportunities to in several innings, but other than that we still put up seven runs… Anybody in our conference can beat anybody. And we knew that was gonna be the case today. We had to come out and play well.”

It was a sloppy frame for Markl as he allowed four of the first five Stanford hitters to reach base, including a leadoff homer from sophomore catcher Malcolm Moore, but the mistakes just kept getting worse. An errant throw to home from third baseman Kevin Karstetter and a wild pitch from Markl ended the outing early for the southpaw.

Junior right-handed pitcher Jonah Giblin came in relief for Markl and was not much better at first by allowing a double and another home run to Moore, which was his second in the frame. However, the junior picked it up and threw three scoreless frames afterward to keep the offense in it.

After allowing eight unanswered runs to start the game, the ASU lineup chipped into the deficit by scoring in four of the last six innings. The moment when the comeback gained some serious momentum was when first baseman Eamonn Lance launched a two-run homer to left field in the sixth.

It was Lance’s second at-bat as he pinch hit for Karstetter in the fifth after the third baseman’s throwing error during Stanford’s fourth-inning rally. The graduate student has been primarily a pinch hitter with the Sun Devils as he only had nine starts in his only regular season with the team, so he knows role and played it perfectly.

“I pride myself in being a good teammate and I think the guys recognize that,” Lance said. “When I am called upon and able to get stuff done, those guys got my back and they’re really happy for me as I am for them when they succeed. If I can be that spark that gets us going, then I’m happy to do it.”

Lance also drew a bases-loaded walk to drive in another run in that three-run ninth inning, so he had most of the team’s run production coming off the bench. The rest of the team had opportunities as they had 13 walks and left 13 runners on base, so that was definitely an unlucky number for ASU on Tuesday.

Sophomore outfielder Kien Vu, in particular, had an uncharacteristically poor game as he was 0-for-5 with three strikeouts and committed the game’s final out by swinging at the first pitch and flying it out to left field. The sophomore has been one of the team’s best players with a team-high .427 batting average and 56 RBI, but he just did not seem himself in the batter’s box.

Vu and the Sun Devils went to Palo Alto May 10-12 and swept the Cardinal by outscoring them 39-9 in the three-game series, but they could not replicate anything close to that on Tuesday. Bloomquist thinks part of the reason why could be that Stanford threw all of their best pitchers.

“I knew they were going to empty the kitchen sink to try to win that game if they could,” Bloomquist said. “They threw their Saturday guy (freshman left-handed pitcher Chrisitan Lim), and their closer (sophomore right-handed pitcher Toran O’Harran) and their Friday guy (sophomore right-handed pitcher Matt Scott). To their credit, they got us where they could get us.”

Stanford also threw their Sunday starter sophomore right-handed pitcher Nick Dugan to finish the game, so it had all hands on deck to get the win. On the other hand, ASU used its ace and then two of its better relievers — Giblin and sophomore left-handed pitcher Sean Fitzpatrick — to toss five scoreless innings to end the game.

That leaves sophomore left-handed pitcher Ben Jacobs to presumably get the nod Thursday as he is on regular rest with his last start on May 16. Bloomquist’s message to his team after the loss was to control what they can control, so all they can do at this point is not dwell on the loss and see if they can pull an incredible upset against OSU on Thursday at 10 a.m. PST.

“It stings, we’ve been playing good,” Bloomqusit said. “It’s a little disheartening, but that doesn’t diminish anything we’ve accomplished in the last month and a half and we’re still a very capable team. I guess you never know what’s going to happen. All we can control is go out and play well on Thursday against Oregon State and see where we go from there.”