LOS ANGELES -- Through his dark black sunglasses, a baffled Tracy Smith gave third baseman Gage Workman that typical, “What are you doing?” glare coaches always want to stay dormant.
Smith wasn’t afforded a straight face this weekend.
Center fielder Hunter Bishop misplayed multiple USC fly balls. Catcher Sam Ferri threw a pair of balls away on Trojan steals. Pitcher Boyd Vander Kooi chucked a short bunt into right field. After a failed diving catch, right fielder Carter Aldrete hurled his throw all the way in, bouncing it past the unassuming Workman, who thought he had a backup at third.
Occupying the railing of the visiting Dedeaux Field dugout during ASU’s 11-8 win over USC (12-18, 5-7 Pac-12), Smith watched his team transform into its blunderous past self, a cringe-worthy reflection that started to give Deja Vu to those back in Tempe.
On Sunday, Smith peered his eyes through those dark sunglasses, shouting a few words at Workman after the sophomore zoned out, forgetting to cover third base on a USC double steal. Catcher Lyle Lin popped up from his crouch, double and triple pumping to no avail.
Smith’s hard glare towards Workman quickly dissolved, shifting to encouragement for pitcher Brady Corrigan. He stuck out his right arm -- wrist tilted up, palm out -- in Corrigan’s direction as if to say, “You’re OK.”
After a weekend full of gaffes, pitching coach Mike Cather was asked if he ever talks with a struggling pitcher, pulling them to the side and giving them solace in the fact that some of the hits, runs, whatever, weren’t on them.
“Nope. Never,” An adamant Cather said. “If you dwell on a bad call or whatever, all it’s going to do is compound the problem. So, they’re not allowed. There’s no complaining. There’s no coming in and (whining) about a call, a play or anything like that.
“You make a pitch, whatever the situation is, it’s most likely going to be in your favor. And that’s what I want the focus to be on. Not how we’re getting screwed or ‘this should have happened.’ There are no ‘shoulds’. Where are your feet right now? That’s the most important place.”
Two pitches after his lift from Smith, Corrigan allowed two runs to score on a Clay Owens liner. In relief of starter RJ Dabovich, who left the game in the third with a shoulder injury, Corrigan allowed five earned runs and six hits in 4 ⅓ innings of work. There was no blame.
(Cather said that Dabovich just got to a pitch and felt tight, calling out the coaches and training staff to come get him in the third. ASU has no diagnosis or time table for his return.)
Smith had been cautioning those in the program, adversity would come. ASU’s 21-0 stretch was great. But it’s like vacationing in the Bahamas, it's not reality. This weekend was reality for ASU. Not necessarily in terms of wins and losses, but the bad breaks, the tough outings, the little things that go by the waist side when all is roses.
There’s a lot of ‘shoulds’ being thrown with ASU baseball. Perhaps that’s what happens after a good start. After expectations fall into place. Like most series it plays from here on out, ASU was supposed to sweep USC, if not take two out of three.
Instead, it hung on to avoid a sweep Sunday.
“Even when we were ripping off a bunch of wins, I said, ‘Man, we’ve got a lot of improvement, a lot of things we need to get better on,’” Smith said.
For good reason, the bloopers will stick in the minds of most fans. But Cather and ASU’s players headed out of the dugout for the final time Sunday, still baffled by the numbers USC’s offense put up. The Trojans had a combined .250 batting average heading into the series. In three games against ASU, they hit .329 with six long balls.
“For whatever reason, these guys (USC) hit like they didn’t hit on their videos,” Cather said. “They came out swinging and it just seemed like everything we threw they were right on. Both (Friday starter) Alec (Marsh) and (Saturday starter) Boyd (Vander Kooi) had really good stuff. These guys looked like the ‘27 Yankees. Tip your hat to them.”
For really the first time this season, the Sun Devils looked on at another stock-piled lineup that seemed to touch the warning track with each swing. Normally that’s reserved for the Sun Devils’ so-called Bash Bros. of Hunter Bishop and Spencer Torkelson.
Bishop, who won nearly every midseason player of the year award, went just 4-for-14 this weekend. A major slump by his standards. Torkelson, however, seems to be hitting the power surge Smith teased a few weeks ago and assistant coach Ben Greenspan mentioned Friday.
On Friday, USC center fielder Matthew Acosta skied up the Dedeaux Field wall, throwing his glove over the wall to rob Torkelson. Saturday, he got revenge, homering, but then also hitting a ball that was caught at the edge of the warning track. In the series finale, he went opposite for his eighth long ball of the year.
In short, he destroyed most pitches he made contact with.
Torkelson boats a big-league approach to hitting. After a 25-home run effort his freshman year, opposing pitchers weren’t exactly giving him much to drive. No worry. Torkelson was content taking the home-run-nerved pitchers the other way for a double, not distressed about living up to the expectations of a year ago.
On Sunday, the Trojans, nervous of Torkelson’s power, took out starter Kyle Hurt in the fourth after the righty had started ASU’s slugger with a 2-0 count. The replacement? Left-hander John Beller. Torkelson licked his lips.
“Bringing in a lefty when there’s a righty in (at) 2-0 is just, thank you,” Torkelson quipped. “Like I’m not going to tell them not to do it but, no, it’s definitely a good thing because I see lefties well. I knew he was going to go fastball away or curveball.”
Beller went fastball away. Torkelson took it over the right-field fence. After hitting just two home runs in his first 17 games, the California native has now taken a half dozen balls deep in ASU’s last 13 games.
The confirmation was in. Torkelson’s power was back.
He had an inkling of that in batting practice. When his powers numbers dipped, his batting practice shots were hooking down the line. Then they started to move towards the middle of the field.
“You can see it in batting practice,” Smith said. “He’s more comfortable, He’s hitting more balls hard.
“Yeah, it’s coming.”
