Sun Devils overcome hitting struggles to defeat Utah Valley 5-4

(Photo: Marina Williams/WCSN)

PHOENIX — Exactly one week since Tuesday, Arizona State baseball head coach Willie Bloomquist didn’t mince words when talking about his team’s 6-4 loss to New Mexico.

The third-year skipper said his team lacked an “edge” and needed to do a better job of holding one another accountable. In the three games that followed — a weekend series at Arizona — the Sun Devils showed improvement, taking two of three games from their hated rival. They weren’t perfect by any means but displayed flashes that indicated they truly took their coach’s words to heart.

This was very much the same story in ASU’s (10-10, 3-3 Pac-12) 5-4 victory over Utah Valley (7-13 4-2 Wac) on Tuesday. Despite some shortcomings at the plate and an early deficit, Bloomquist’s group’s will to win was evident, as it battled back with timely hitting and strong pitching from the bullpen.

“I think the desire for our guys is certainly there to want to play well,” Bloomquist said. “Offense has got to be better, but I believe they can be. I’ve seen what they’re capable of. Hitting is contagious and right now, we have some big guns in our lineup that aren’t swinging the bat as well as they want, but I believe when they get going this offense will catch fire.”

Many of the same issues that plagued ASU over its most recent stretch reared their ugly head once again on Tuesday. The Sun Devils totaled a mere four knocks in the contest, going 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position. These struggles were only amplified with the bases loaded, as ASU went 0-for-4 in those situations.

With his team trailing 4-1 in the fourth, outfielder Isaiah Jackson had a massive opportunity to tie the game — or just as easily give his squad the lead — with the bases full and only one out on the board. Instead, the outfielder grounded to first, driving in a run with a productive out but continuing an ominous trend. After freshman shortstop Jax Ryan walked to reload the bases, redshirt senior outfielder Harris Williams drew a walk of his own to make it a one-run game. However, the rally ended during the next at-bat, with freshman second baseman Ethan Mendoza flying out to left field.

ASU found itself in another promising scenario in the eighth inning looking to build on a 5-4 advantage. Jackson, Ryan and Williams all reached with two outs, but Mendoza grounded out to second to once again strand the bases loaded.

“It’s tough,” redshirt freshman Brandon Compton said. “We’ve got a lot of guys pressing and got a lot of really good hitters, too. So I feel like we’re one swing away, one guy away from going crazy and putting up 15-20 runs. We’re definitely capable of doing that, one through nine. (We’ve) got a long season ahead of us, and we’ll get it.”

While knocks were few and far between for ASU on Tuesday, Compton found a way to deliver a monumental hit just when his team needed it. In the bottom of the fifth with the Sun Devils down to their final out of the frame, the Buckeye native stepped up to the plate with redshirt sophomore outfielder Nick McLain on first. Compton unloaded on the second pitch he saw for a two-run shot into center field, giving ASU a lead it wouldn’t relinquish for the rest of the night.

“We were just struggling (to get) a timely hit,” Compton said. “So I wasn’t trying to be the guy and get a big hit. I was just trying to pass it onto the next guy, and just elevated one and got one.”

After not appearing this past weekend against Arizona, Tyler Meyer got his fifth start of the season, but things quickly got off to a rough start. The righty conceded two extra-base hits right off the bat — a leadoff double followed by a two-run homer into center — and at times struggled to locate his pitches despite only walking two. In 3 ⅔ innings of work, Meyer struck out two but allowed four runs and gave up five hits, four of which were doubles.

But the California native’s early-season struggles don’t necessarily come as a surprise. Meyer missed all of last season with a torn labrum, and Bloomquist acknowledged that fully recovering from these injuries can often take time for pitchers, a process the redshirt sophomore is currently in the middle of.

“Baseball is extremely humbling,” Bloomquist said. “I’ve seen a lot of pitchers come off major injuries, with Tommy John or shoulder surgery like this, they continually seem to just get beat down from a standpoint of, they feel healthy, but they just don’t have the feel back yet. And they want to be good, and it usually takes — as much as nobody wants to hear this — it usually takes a year back after that.

“You can see the (velocity) is back and you can see the stuff is there. But I know he gets frustrated because he’s not putting it where he wants, he just can’t find that feel on the finish… Tyler is such a great kid and has worked so hard… and I believe he’s going to get it.”

Senior right-hander Hunter Omlid replaced Meyer with two outs in the fourth and made his presence felt immediately, striking out senior outfielder Calyn Halvorson, the first hitter he saw, to end the inning. This was foreshadowing for his performance through the next five innings, as the Grand Canyon transfer fanned 11-of-the-19 Wolverines he faced in a dominant performance.

Omlid used a mix of a mid-90 mph fastball and low-80 mph slider to fill up the zone and keep Utah Valley’s lineup guessing, and this strategy worked wonders. He struck out the side in the fifth and posted another 1-2-3 inning in the eighth, but even when he didn’t face the minimum, the senior had little to no issues. Omlid allowed only three baserunners across his entire outing and had no trouble with command, as he issued one walk and put 57 of his 79 pitches inside the strike zone.

“Locating my fastball in different parts of the strike zone,” Omlid said of his approach. “It just helps my slider, and it just works well to have it down and up and in all four quadrants (of the strike zone). It makes everything a lot better.”

There is still much work to be done for ASU to produce consistent results, but both sides of the ball have shown flashes of what a team operating at peak efficiency can look like. If pitching can continue to be serviceable, it will likely only be a matter of time for the Sun Devils’ highly-regarded lineup to find its footing and return to form.

“If we could ever put it all together on both sides of (the ball), on the flickers that we’ve shown, we’ve got a shot to be pretty good,” Bloomquist said. “There have been times where this offense has been lights-out, there have been times where the starting pitching has been lights-out and there have been times where the bullpen has been lights-out.

“So the potential is there if we can put it all together, and I’ve kind of made reference to that. We just haven’t hit on all cylinders yet. Which is okay, but hopefully we hit on all cylinders as the season progresses and we get firing when it becomes crunch time, towards the end of this (season) and hopefully into — I hesitate saying postseason — but that’s the goal. If we can get hot going into that, then we’ll be a dangerous team.”