The Arizona State bats have been a lot of things thus far this season. One of the kinder ways to describe the bunch is inconsistent, and that inconsistency was painfully evident on Tuesday night. The Sun Devils took an early lead, collected more hits than UC Irvine, but eventually fell to the Anteaters 4-3 in the first of a two-game road set.
If college baseball games were decided in the early innings, this ASU team would be one of the country’s best. After taking 2-0 and 3-1 leads during the game’s first four innings, ASU failed to score in the final five. They left men on base in the fifth and sixth and squandered a bases loaded chance in the seventh before going quietly with six straight outs in the eighth and ninth.
Tyler Meyer made his third start on the mound on Tuesday. The Cal-State Stanislaus transfer labored through 3.2 innings of work, walking five batters while striking out six. He allowed three of Irvine’s four runs, punctuated by a two-run, two-out game tying double on his last pitch of the night. The Arizona State bullpen had a good showing, accounting for 5.1 innings of one-run ball. That one sixth-inning run, surrendered by Jared Glenn, proved to be the difference. Glenn finished the fourth inning and pitched the fifth and sixth, while Christian Bodlovich logged two scoreless innings in the seventh and eighth.
At the top of the first. Sean McLain laced a one-out double before Ethan Long followed with one of his own to put the Sun Devils up 1-0. The second run of the frame came in less conventional fashion. With first and third and two outs, Blake Pivaroff took off for second base on the pitch. He ultimately hung up in an inning-ending rundown, but Long scampered home and crossed the plate before the tag was applied on the bases.
In the third inning, Alex Champagne plated ASU’s third run with a sacrifice fly. Champagne has been filling in at second base lately as McLain shifts over to shortstop in Hunter Haas’s absence.
Bloomquist may have found the straw that stirs the drink at the top of the batting order. After initially putting Sean McLain in the leadoff spot for the first ten games of the season, Joe Lampe has made the spot home in the games since. Lampe has proven to be the spark plug this lineup needs, and McLain seems to be more comfortable in the two-spot himself. On Tuesday night, he picked up three more hits, including a ringing double. Ethan Long also continued his hot road trip, going 3-3 with a double and a walk on the evening. McLain and Long finding their strokes heading into conference play would be a massive boost for the Arizona State lineup.
Game two of the series takes place on Wednesday, with ASU looking to even the two-game series and finish the first road trip of the season over .500. The Sun Devils welcome San Francisco this coming weekend at Phoenix Municipal Stadium before heading to Oregon State the following weekend to begin conference play.
