PHOENIX — Brandon Compton stepped up to the dish at Phoenix Municipal Stadium with the bases loaded, no outs and Arizona State baseball down 8-6 in the bottom of the sixth. The redshirt freshman had only one thought in his head: just put the ball in play.
Up to that point, Compton was 0-for-2 on the day with a pair of strikeouts, but the ramifications of him not getting on base went beyond his personal statline. Following Saturday’s 13-4 loss to Ohio State, head coach Willie Bloomquist said his team needed to perform better with runners on base. ASU had already converted with ducks on the pond in the second thanks to a two-RBI single from junior first baseman Jacob Tobias, but at such a pivotal point in the game, another base knock was needed. Even a single would do.
Compton got that and then some. The Buckeye native unloaded on a 1-1 pitch with a majestic swing, launching a grand slam well over the 395-foot center-field wall.
“It felt great,” Compton said. “I mean, going up to that point, I had two strikeouts… I was just like,‘man, I’ve got to do something.’ So that was huge.”
For a team like ASU (5-3) — that has relied heavily on its lineup to win its games and is prone to giving up high-scoring innings at any point thus far in the season — a two-run lead likely wouldn’t provide enough comfort with three innings left to play. However, Sunday’s game concluded after 7 ½ innings due to Ohio State (4-4) needing to catch a flight back home, so Compton’s homer was all that was needed for a 10-8 victory that secured a series split with the Buckeyes.
“These are all character-building wins if we can come out on top,” Bloomquist said. “We’re being battle tested for sure. So I think if we can clean some things up as we move forward — we’ve played a lot of baseball in the last 10 days, eight games in 10 days, we’ve been challenged pretty good — but we’ve got a chance to lick our wounds a little bit and recover…”
While pitching, specifically the bullpen, has been an area of concern for the Sun Devils, things started nicely for redshirt sophomore starter Tyler Meyer. The righty, who started in his second game of the season after missing all of last year with a torn labrum, ran into some minor issues early, allowing two baserunners in his opening inning of work and had some trouble locating his pitches early. But Meyer ultimately escaped the inning without any damage, and for the first time this series, ASU did not allow a run in the first frame.
In 4 ⅓ innings of work, Meyer allowed four hits, walked four and struck out two, and finished his outing with the Sun Devils in the lead. He did have five runs against his name, but only one was earned, as Steven Ondina was credited with a rare error in the second after not being able to cleanly corral a knock from junior left fielder Trey Lispey. This, in part, led to Ohio State plating four runs in the inning to erase a three-spot that ASU built in the first.
“That’s just how the game goes sometimes,” Meyer said. “That’s out of my control. Obviously the walks were within my control, so I’m not happy with myself about that. But (you) just have to bounce back. It’s just dealing with what the game throws at you, and (I) don’t hold that against anybody. I’ve just got to control what I can control and go keep competing.”
ASU’s bats didn’t take long to get going on Sunday, with junior catcher Ryan Campos, Tobias and sophomore outfielder Isaiah Jackson picking up RBI knocks in the opening frame. Tobias — who finished the day going 3-for-4 with three RBI — came through again an inning later with the bases juiced and his team trailing 4-3, lacing a single into left field to bring in two more runs.
However, after the second, both teams stayed quiet until the fifth inning with freshman right-hander Adam Behrens on the mound. Only in need of one more out to put up a zero in the inning, Behrens surrendered a three-run shot to junior first baseman Ryan Miller to put Ohio State up 7-5. While the Sun Devils scraped another run across in the bottom of the inning, strong pitching was needed to keep them in a position to win the game.
After the fifth, though, ASU’s staff was nearly flawless. While Behrens allowed one more run and five more hits, freshman closer Cole Carlon shined in the game’s last 1 ⅔ innings. When Carlon entered the game, there were runners on first and second with one out. However, Lipsey grounded into a double play on the second pitch from Carlon, helping his team escape the inning without giving up any more runs.
His next inning of work wasn’t seamless, as he allowed a pair of baserunners with two outs. But Carlon ultimately got the final out of the afternoon and finished his outing giving up a hit and walk but keeping the Buckeyes off the scoresheet to earn his second collegiate save.
“The big pitch was there in the seventh, getting us out of that jam,” Bloomquist said. “The guys turned a big double play behind (Carlon). The eighth wasn’t as sharp as we’d like it to be, that’s something he’s going to have to learn how to do. If we’re going to get to where we want to be, he’s going to have to go more than one inning and be sharp for longer than one inning.”
A four-game split with Ohio State isn’t exactly what Bloomquist & company had hoped for following a monumental win over then-No. 24 Kansas State on Tuesday. However, the Sun Devils finished the weekend two games above .500, and have some momentum to carry into their trip to Texas next weekend.
“There are a lot of positives,” Bloomquist said. “These guys aren’t giving in. They’re bouncing back from the adversity that we’re facing, and they keep coming at ‘em. So from that standpoint, I’m very proud of these guys that they keep battling.”
