Sun Devils’ Complete Effort Powers Much-Needed Win Over Texas Tech

(Photo: Maya Diaz/WCSN)

PHOENIX — Adversity can be handled in one of two ways in life. You could either fold under the pressure and elect not to push any further or choose to keep fighting against all odds. Arizona State baseball dealt with its fair share of adversity this past week, losing three of four games on its Midwest road trip and being walked off twice.

However, the Sun Devils chose to address their recent struggles with the latter approach, sticking together and believing in their abilities — they’ll need to if they intend on competing for an NCAA Tournament bid in the next five weeks. Thursday night’s game against Texas Tech was a good start.

With the score deadlocked at three heading into the seventh inning, the game was quickly blown wide open as ASU (24-14, 10-6 Big 12) plated seven runs in the final two innings at the plate. Texas Tech (11-22, 7-9 Big 12) simply didn’t have a response, as the Sun Devils cruised to a 10-4 victory to open this weekend’s series.

“I’m really proud of our guys, the way they bounced back,” head coach Willie Bloomquist said. “This is a tight-knit group right now, which sometimes adversity does that to you, and I think we’re in a great place mentally.”

Junior southpaw Ben Jacobs couldn’t have set the tone earlier, primarily using his heater to strike out the first six batters he faced. And while Jacobs was un-hittable in the first two frames, the Sun Devils’ offense took full advantage.

After being held scoreless in the opening inning despite loading the bases with two outs, ASU continued to put runners on in the second as sophomore designated hitter Brandon Compton and junior outfielder Kien Vu each singled. A groundout from senior backstop advanced the runners 90 feet before junior outfielder Isaiah Jackson slammed his first home run since March 23 over the wall in left-center field.

“It was good,” Jackson said. “(Runners on) second and third with less than two (outs), so I was just trying to put the ball in the air somewhere. As (senior shortstop) Matt King says, mother nature threw me a bone… I was excited about it.”

As good as Jacobs has been at pounding the zone, he’s displayed that he’s prone to giving up some big innings, and that occurred again on Thursday. In the third, Texas Tech sophomore third baseman Garet Boehm lined a leadoff double down the right-field line before sophomore outfielder Kyeler Thompson was plucked, putting two runners on.

An RBI double from junior second baseman Tracer Lopez scored both baserunners before he was brought around himself thanks to sophomore outfielder Logan Hughes’ ground-rule double.

Perhaps Jacobs’ struggles were because of the long amount of time it took in between the second and third innings. Maybe it was something else. But when he returned to the bump, he didn’t seem to have any recollection of the prior frame, as he provided three more scoreless innings and notched a career-high 13 strikeouts in a quality start.

“Every time I give up a crooked inning, I just get in the dugout and tell myself it’s a 0-0 game,” Jacobs said. “I go out every inning 0-0 mentality, because it’s a way for me to stay confident and stay convicted with all my pitches. Giving up a three-spot like that, it sucks, it hurts. But at the end of the day, I’ve got to go back out there and still compete, and I can’t bring whatever happens that inning into the next one.”

For as good as Jacobs was in the next three innings, Texas Tech was also the beneficiary of strong pitching following right-handed starter Mac Heuer’s departure from the game after just 1.1 frames. Right-handed reliever Trendan Parish provided four scoreless innings despite only picking up one strikeout. However, once the seventh rolled around, ASU finally chased him from the game.

A one-out walk drawn by Vu was all that was required for head coach Tim Tadlock to pull the plug. But the arms that were brought in simply didn’t have the same jump as Parish. Jackson picked up his fourth RBI of the day with a single into center before senior second baseman Kyle Walker got caught in a rundown between first and second with two outs, allowing Jackson to score before he was tagged.

It was a lot more of the same in the eighth as a single from freshman outfielder Landon Hairston was followed by a 396-foot two-run homer from King — which represented his ninth extra-base knock in the last seven games. With two runners on and two outs, senior catcher Josiah Cromwick got in on the fun, too, launching a three-run jack into left-center field.

“We just keep our foot on the pedal at all times,” Jackson said. “It just seems like the middle innings, we’re kind of like,‘All right, we got a lead, we can ease into it.’ I think tonight, we really honed in on going at every inning like it’s the ninth inning and we’re down a run, like just trying to find a way to scratch and just get at least one.

“I think staying on that in this game, we didn’t score much in the middle innings, but we were still putting barrels on the ball and having really good at-bats, and sticking to it. And then eventually, later in the game, we started to get those runs.”

While ASU’s bullpen struggled at times this past weekend — and on multiple occasions over the course of this season — that wasn’t the case on Thursday. Senior righty Will Koger put up a zero in the seventh, his lone inning of work. Sophomore lefty Cole Carlon, who entered into this game on a dominant run of relief appearances, looked to keep that momentum going.

He did concede a single earned run that snapped his scoreless streak at 13.1 innings, but had a mostly-clean two innings to seal the win for the Sun Devils, striking out two and only allowing a pair of baserunners.

ASU’s complete effort on Thursday will be needed much more down the stretch as it jockey for positioning within the Big 12 and in the NCAA Tournament landscape. Thursday was undoubtedly a good starting point, and Bloomquist feels it could be a welcomed spark for his team in the coming weeks.

“You’re going to see that the rest of the year for these guys,” Bloomquist said. “We’re never playing for nobody else other than this program and those kids in there. They deserve it. All of our staff support, my support, we are going to continue as we’ve always done: pour into these players. We’re going to block out all the external noise and focus on our guys. That’s all we can do. That’s all we’ve ever done.

“It’s just magnified a little bit more now, and good. I’m excited about where these next five weeks are going to bring us. So (we) started today, today was step one.”