Taylor Penn-Colin Linder piggyback gives ASU a chance for its first Big 12 Conference sweep

(Photo: Connor Gleason/WCSN)

PHOENIX – Arizona State redshirt junior right-handed pitcher Colin Linder has faced a world of adversity.

Originally committed to Texas A&M, Linder began his collegiate career at the junior college level before arriving in Tempe. His ascension was delayed by an elbow injury that cost him his first season at ASU.

Still, his adversity persisted. A rocky first month bounced Linder from the rotation and into the bullpen, where he experienced numerous ups and downs along the way.

Yet, Saturday night, all the stars aligned.

Linder was called upon in the fourth inning, with his team up 3-1, to piggyback off of sophomore right-handed starter Taylor Penn, and was electric. Four innings later, having only given up one run, one hit, two walks and having struck out five, he exited with the lead still intact. The rest of No. 25 ASU (30-14, 13-7 Big 12) was able to finish the job, securing the home series victory with a 4-2 win over BU (22-20, 9-11).

“Pitching staff threw the ball great tonight,” Bloomquist said. “T-Penn got us off to a nice start, and can’t say enough about the job Colin Linder did, coming in and eating up the bulk of the game there.”

At first, it didn’t seem like Linder was a lock to go four strong.

The righty started his outing in the fourth with a 10-pitch at-bat against freshman right fielder Brady Janusek, who battled and battled, fouling off pitch after pitch, until he won the war, launching a 95 MPH fastball 458 feet into the desert night and over the middle of the three number boards beyond the left-center field wall.

“He’s (Linder) got one of those fastballs that’s tough to square up and tough to hit, except for that Janusek kid who didn’t miss that one, hit that one a country mile,” Bloomquist said.

Counterintuitively, giving up the blast might’ve been exactly what Linder needed.

“When you come in, and you’re not 100% dialed in, they’ll show you real quick what happens,” Linder said. “I had to get angry and lock back in.

“I used to be a robot when I pitched, emotionally. I found that pitching angry, you get a little more locked in, you get a little more focused. Sometimes, you need just a little bit of ‘screw you’ in you.”

An angry Linder equaled an effective Linder. He got the next batter he faced to fly out to right field. While a walk, an error courtesy of sophomore second baseman Beckett Zavorek and another walk loaded the bases, a tailor-made 4-6-3 double play avoided catastrophe.

From there, Linder retired nine of the next 10 Bears he faced – only allowing a one-out walk in the sixth inning – leaving with a win in his future as Bloomquist had junior RHP Alex Overbay take over in the eighth.

Postgame, Linder was candid about his path to the present day. From losing his weekend spot after giving up four runs in four innings to Tennessee on Feb. 28, to owning a 4.87 ERA over his next nine appearances and 20.1 innings pitched, to now owning an ERA of just 1.59 over his last 5.2 innings, 2026 has been a wild year for him, but also one of inspiration.

“It’s been an emotional rollercoaster for me,” Linder, whose season ERA now sits at 4.19, said. “Obviously, not getting to the start I wanted at the beginning of the year is tough. But also, that’s kind of how it is after coming off Tommy John. No one’s perfect right off the bat, no one’s perfect ever. … (I) Probably got a little complacent at the beginning, and it’s given me motivation to just push through and find who I was before and really improve on everything.”

If not for Penn’s start, going three strong to kick off the action, Linder wouldn’t have even been in position to pick up the win.

Penn bounced between starting and relieving in 2026. Like Linder, he had been riding a rollercoaster of his own in his first season in Tempe.

On Saturday night, the Sun Devil faithful saw perhaps his steadiest showing yet.

Penn worked around a throwing error from junior shortstop PJ Moutzouridis in the first inning, gave up only a solo shot to junior catcher JJ Kennett in the second, and stranded a couple of free passes in the third to exit relatively unscathed, winning 3-1 and setting the tone for the rest of the game.

“He came in and attacked the zone,” Linder said. “That’s all we can ask of guys, and he did that. He held runners and gave us a chance to win.”

Penn was able to hold the few base runners he had to deal with by throwing over and varying his “times and tempos,” as Bloomquist put it.

It gave his catcher, redshirt sophomore Brody Briggs, a chance to gun down two members of the Big 12’s fourth-most stealing team on the basepaths – once to end the first, and the second to erase a leadoff hit-by-pitch in the third.

“Those were two huge plays in today’s game that kind of go unnoticed,” Bloomquist said. “Not only Briggsy throwing them out, but T-Penn, the way he was holding him over there, it was really textbook.”

Briggs wasn’t the only Sun Devil to show off on defense, as fifth-year right fielder Dean Toigo, known more for his bat than his leather, capped off the top of the third by flipping over the side wall in right field to secure a catch.

Throughout most of the year, the offense, which has averaged 8.82 runs per game, has often done enough to overcome the staff’s 5.50 ERA, but it hasn’t always been pretty or easy. From blowing seven-run leads to being forced into a rubber match in five out of seven conference series, the pitching has stopped ASU from being as dominant as possible.

It’s been an adventure to find the right rotation and mix of guys in the bullpen, with eight different arms taking the ball to start and leverage roles constantly shifting, but both Penn and Linder – who Bloomquist didn’t rule out from starting going forward – gave a glimpse at a potential future where the Sun Devils boast a more consistent and dangerous starting rotation.

It’s something that the Sun Devils are going to need, at least on some level, to truly compete with the best of the best in the nation.

If Omaha is the goal, as both players and Bloomquist have consistently stated, ASU will need to present hurlers who can take it through a tournament with near-daily games.

And they won’t get there without pitching.

“If you don’t have pitching, you ain’t going to win,” Bloomquist said. “That’s just bottom line. I don’t care how good your offense is, your pitching, you’re only going to go as far as they take you.”