(Photo: Marina Williams/WCSN)
PHOENIX – As the home of Arizona State baseball for the last eight seasons and counting, the Sun Devils have gotten familiar with all of the quirks that their home ballpark delivers. Phoenix Municipal Stadium is located in one of the warmest places on Earth and also plays host to a jet stream that soars over the stadium, making it one of the most hitter-friendly ballparks in the country.
However, even with the familiarity, the knowledge doesn’t lessen the blow when Phoenix Muni decides that a routine flyout is a home run, and in the fourth inning, sophomore right-handed pitcher Tyler Meyer was reminded just how punishing the stadium could be.
After three scoreless innings that saw him face the minimum in all three innings, Meyer faced his first trouble when loading the bases with two outs in the fourth, but the California native got junior first baseman Jacob Walsh out on his front foot with an 0-0 off-speed pitch, forcing what appeared to be a weak fly ball.
Graduate left fielder Harris Williams had a beat on it, racing back to the wall, but the ball kept drifting, drifting and drifting until it landed in the Ducks’ bullpen for a grand slam and an Oregon 4-2 lead.
It was a lead they would not relinquish as the Oregon Ducks (11-4, 2-1 Pac-12) defeated the Sun Devils (7-8, 1-2 Pac-12) 8-5, winning the rubber match to take the series.
The grand slam ended what was, up to that point, Meyer’s best start of the year. Meyer was lights out the first time through the Oregon lineup, striking out four in the process. He then proceeded to get the first two batters of the fourth inning out with no issues, but four batters later, ASU was down two, and Meyer’s night was done.
“(Meyer) threw the ball better today,” Bloomquist said. “In the fourth inning, we had a walk and a hit and then a Muni home run there to left field where (Meyer) made a pretty good pitch, got the guy out front. I think the kid thought he was going to be out, and he looked up, and it’s a Grand Slam, got up in the jet stream.
“It’s not the home run that killed us. It’s the walk and the hit batter prior to the home run that really leaves a scar.”
The Ducks extended the lead to 5-2 in the fifth, and while the ASU pitching staff might be at a disadvantage at their own home ballpark, the Sun Devil lineup has already proved they have the advantage at home. Entering Sunday, the Sun Devils ranked second in the Pac-12 with 24 home runs, and on Sunday, they added three more.
Williams led off the fifth inning with a solo shot that was aided by the Phoenix Muni jet stream, just eclipsing the left field wall, and Campos went back-to-back with his first homer of the day to left-center. Campos would eventually homer again in the seventh, depositing a hanging breaking ball into the on top of the Whiteman Family Performance Center.
The one common theme between all three of these blasts, however, is that they all came with nobody on base.
Through their first eight games of the season, the Sun Devils averaged 9.9 runs per game, but since the conclusion of the Ohio State series on Feb. 25, that number has fallen to just 4.9 runs per game. The home runs are still there, but the base runners are not.
“We’re not putting it all together as a team,” Bloomquist said. “We’re not putting together one at-bat, to the next, to the next, to the next. We’re hitting home runs, but nobody is on base. We’re not putting together the beginnings.”
Following the pair of solo blasts that pulled ASU back within one, Bloomquist went to junior right-hander Matt Cornelius, one of his more trusted relievers, early this season. Four batters later, Bloomquist was walking back out to the mound after Cornelius had surrendered two singles and two walks, allowing a run and retiring no one.
The bullpen has been one of the Sun Devils’ biggest weaknesses this year, and navigating the murky waters of the later innings has already pushed Bloomquist to joke about how he is slightly more gray than he was at the start of the season.
“I”m grayer every day,” Bloomquist said. “There’s days where we’re doing really well and putting guys in the situations that they were successful in the previous outing, and then the next time whether they are on or aren’t it’s trying to find the pulse of when they’re going to be on and when they’re not. And, if they’re not on try to get them out of there as quickly as you can.”
Holding leads on both Saturday and Sunday, the opening weekend of Pac-12 play offered ASU squandered a chance to take a series from the defending conference champions. The Sun Devils pitched and hit well enough to fall just short, playing just well enough to be competitive but just bad enough to lose, which is a place that no one wants to be.
“When you don’t play bad, but we don’t play good enough to win, that song and dance that gets old real fast,” Bloomquist said. “That’s one of those things that I can’t sit up here and preach. I can’t will it into these guys. It’s just a killer instinct. You have to figure out ways to win games. You can’t play good enough to lose and almost win.”
