(Photo: Sammy Nute/WCSN)
PHOENIX — A little over one year ago, then-No. 18 Arizona State baseball visited unranked Arizona Wildcats in a midweek game towards the latter half of the year. The Sun Devils were in prime position to make their first NCAA Tournament under head coach Willie Bloomquist, and the Wildcats were struggling but starting to heat up, sitting at 6-12 in Pac-12 play.
However, when ASU made the trip down to Tucson for the non-conference midweek bout, Arizona sent a message, coming away with a 20-0 dominant win. From that point on, the two teams went in different directions, with Arizona effectively stealing ASU’s postseason position a few weeks later.
This year, the two teams are flipped. The No. 17 ranked Wildcats (30-17, 17-7 Pac-12) made the two-hour drive north, and the Sun Devils (26-24,14-13 Pac-12), winners of four of their last five, were in the position to play spoiler. But a strong performance from Arizona’s relievers in a full bullpen game quieted the Sun Devils’ offense on its way to a 5-3 Wildcats win.
“We may look back and say,‘Yeah, that was a disappointing one,’ but to me, they all sting,” Bloomquist said. “Anytime you lose, they all leave a mark. You especially hate losing to those guys, but at the end of the day, it was a pretty clean game on both sides.”
After a strong weekend against Stanford in which they didn’t have to use many arms, the Wildcats utilized nine different pitchers for the nine innings while the Sun Devils were forced to lean on freshman right-handed pitcher Wyatt Halvorson, the only pitcher not used over the weekend in ASU’s series against Washington.
Those nine pitchers faced a tough test on Tuesday. Entering the contest, ASU was one of the hottest offenses in the country. Over their last nine games, the Sun Devils averaged a whopping 13.7 runs per game, scoring double-digit runs in seven of those games.
Sophomore outfielder Nick McLain was named the National Player of the Week by multiple publications, including D1Baseball and the NCAA, slugging a home run in all five games last week. Sophomore outfielder Kien Vu extended his hitting streak to 15 games and raised his slash line to .439/.504/.807.
Both players’ streaks were snapped against the Wildcats as the star outfield pair combined to go 1-for-8 at the plate. Vu struck out four times on his way to snapping his hitting streak.
“Prior to last week, (McLain) was down in the doldrums a little bit, and then all of a sudden, he’s a national player of the week; that’s just baseball,” Bloomquist said. “Kien Vu’s not gonna go four-for-five every night and hit doubles and homers every night, kids human.”
As arguably their only fresh arm, the Sun Devils would have loved for Halvorson to get deep into his start, but despite throwing the ball relatively well, the freshman allowed four runs on five hits and three walks in just 3.2 innings. All of the damage allowed by Halvorson came by way of the long ball.
Freshman outfielder TJ Adams, hitting in the nine spots and starting just his ninth game this season, led off the third inning with his first home run of the season, knocking a 1-1 fastball over the center field wall. Then, after walking sophomore outfielder Brendan Summerhill, sophomore outfielder Mason White clubbed his team-leading 15th home run to extend the Wildcats’ lead to 3-0.
In the next inning, Halvorson once again allowed a leadoff homer, this time to freshman designated hitter Andrew Cain.
“Going into it, if you would have told us we were going to hold them to five (runs) based on, you know, where our pitching staff was with available arms, I would have taken that,” Bloomquist said.
With just one day off between Tuesday’s game and the 21-18 marathon showdown with Washington on Sunday, Bloomquist was expected to stay away from some of his elite relievers. However, all four relievers used on Sunday pitched again on Tuesday.
Sophomore lefty Sean Fitzpatrick, senior righty Matt Tieding, freshman lefty Cole Carlon and junior righty Ryan Schiefer quickly recovered and delivered one of the best bullpen performances of the year. Taking over for Halvorson with two outs in the fourth, the relievers combined to throw 5.1 innings, striking out four and allowing just one run.
The bullpen did its job, keeping ASU within striking distance all night, but the offense couldn’t come through despite multiple scoring chances, leaving eight runners on base.
“Having those veteran guys that we do have (in the bullpen) in those situations that are willing to do it and have been able to continue to be effective, it’s big,” Bloomquist said. “We’re gonna need that type of effort here at the end of the end of the month, but right now from where we stand, it’s a tribute to those guys stepping up in this situation and being willing to do it.”
The midweek game against Arizona was likely the Sun Devils last chance at a ranked win this season. Now, ASU will be grateful for two off days before a massive series against Stanford in Palo Alto as the Cardinal offers ASU the last chance to improve their conference record before the Pac-12 Tournament.
“We’re gonna need everybody to step up and hopefully play their best baseball these last few weeks of the regular season, then hopefully beyond,” Bloomquist said. “For us, it’s that time we gotta get the best out of everybody right now.”
