Sun Devils work through early fall struggles

(Photo: Brielle White/WCSN)

PHOENIX– Legendary former Arizona State head coach and current Milwaukee Brewers manager Pat Murphy led his team to the World Series on Thursday night, sweeping the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Murphy’s legacy is immortalized at Phoenix Municipal Stadium. In the concourse resides a display of his tenure with the team from 1995-2009. On that display, with maroon numbers and a gold background, are the years he led the Sun Devils to three collegiate World Series appearances.

The groundwork for a storied program to return to its glory continued to be laid on Friday as ASU beat Arizona Western in both games of its exhibition doubleheader–with the first game starting at 1 p.m. MST with a score of 7-1 and the second with a start time around 4 p.m. MST, and a final score of 2-1.

Head coach Willie Bloomquist, who is following in the footsteps of his former coach, expressed his displeasure with the returning group.

“There are a handful of good things and a lot of bad things that we’ve got to clean up and get better at,” Bloomquist said. “Accountability, older leadership needs to be better, paying attention to the details of the game is very poor right now.”

The outcome of the games may not have a meaning since there are no standings; how the current crop of transfers and newcomers look and develop are what matters.

In the first game of the day, there were a handful of veterans who were in the lineup. Many scouts were in attendance, along with ASU fans hoping to see the talent remaining from the team that had experienced a heartbreaking exit in the Lincoln Regional on May 31.

Fourth-year infielder Dominic Smaldino hit a soaring solo home run in the second inning, leaving the Matador’s pitcher wishing there wasn’t any wind with the changing fall weather.

From there, the slugging would cease.

“We swung the bats okay,” Bloomquist said. “The wind’s blowing today, and we had 15 fly ball outs.

Third-year outfielder Landon Hairston, who set the single-season home run record for the Sun Devils in 2026, accounted for three outs, with one of them a sacrifice giving the Sun Devils a run.

At the bottom of the fifth inning, Hairston had an RBI, scoring second-year infielder Davis Perkins. Perkins, a part of ASU’s incoming transfer class, drew a walk and stole a base before Hairston’s at-bat.

Later in the eventful inning, Hairston would score after Smaldino’s double, where the wind carried the ball once again to give himself a double accompanied by the home run.

As for pitching, the Sun Devils had major holes to fill, with the likes of Cole Carlon, Sean Fitzpatrick and Kole Klecker heading pro. Cycling through four pitchers on Friday, ASU continued to evaluate who could take over those roles. The foursome combined to walk no batters in game one. “We have a lot of things to clean up,” Bloomquist said. “These types of games expose that and let us know where we need to get to.”

Once the first pitch of the second game was underway, many of the scouts that were in the stands departed, which left a largely empty Phoenix Municipal Stadium.

Along with them, the veterans were also taken out of the game to make way for players fighting for their position on the team come spring. Of these, there were five pitchers for the Sun Devils who combined for four strikeouts and eight walks.

“When you come out flat the way we did today, without an aggressive mindset,” Bloomquist said. “There’s a lot of things that we’ve got to get better at for sure.”

After five scoreless innings with both teams seeking ways to break through, at the bottom of the sixth inning, fourth-year outfielder and new transfer Preston Newberry walked and scored along with first-year infielder Jet Berry. With ASU’s next scrimmage against Central Arizona on Oct. 21, there are many question marks remaining after the 2026 transfer portal and MLB Draft left the program with seemingly as many holes as SpongeBob SquarePants. The program with five national titles is desperately searching for ways to give itself chances to get back to that ceiling.

“With this many new guys coming in with the amount of turnover we’ve had, just reestablishing the mentality of what we believe in,” Bloomquist said. “Our standards of what we expect to do right now are not very good; we’ve got to be better.”