In any year prior to 2022, Willie Bloomquist’s first season at the helm would have ended on Sunday in Pullman. Arizona State was swept by Washington State, ending an uninspiring trudge to the finish line of the regular season. An at-large bid to the NCAA tournament has been off the table for over a month now, but the inaugural Pac-12 tournament later this week in Scottsdale ensures that the Sun Devils will play at least two more games this season. Coaches often talk about the importance of heading into postseason play on a high note, with confidence and momentum acting as the wind in a team’s sails. Unfortunately for ASU, the dramatically up and down season’s final stop comes at its deepest depths.
Nearly every issue that a baseball team can face has been present for the Sun Devils at one point or another this season. Thursday night in Pullman, it was a combination of injuries, an illness, and lack of any sort of offense that plagued the team in a 2-0 loss to the Cougars. Kyle Luckham did his job (surprise, surprise), but the bats didn’t help him in the slightest. Singles from Sean McLain and Jacob Tobias accounted for the only two ASU hits.
Friday’s game two featured more fireworks but ultimately the same result. ASU led briefly after Will Rogers hit his ninth home run of the season in the fourth inning to give ASU a 4-2 lead. The Sun Devils’ starting pitcher Adam Tulloch couldn’t hold the lead, however, surrendering a grand slam in the home half. ASU never quit in this one, a hallmark of the team through thick and thin this year, but took a 10-6 loss after once trimming the deficit to 7-6.
Washington State was eliminated from PAC-12 tournament contention last weekend after losing two of three at UCLA. In their final game of the regular season, the Cougars sent their seniors out on a high note. They beat a floundering ASU squad 10-3, punctuating the biggest wins of its season and ensuring ASU would drop to the eighth seed in the tournament. Joe Lampe homered to tie the game at three in the fifth. You don’t want to hear about the rest.
A sweep at the hands of Washington State would have been the undisputed low point of pretty much every other ASU baseball season, but 2022’s campaign has its rivals. A home sweep against BYU would like a word, as well as sweeps at Stanford and UCLA that saw Arizona State lead for just three total innings out of the 54. ASU is hobbled, battered, and bruised as it heads into the tournament. As the eighth seed in an eight-team tournament, ASU gets top-seeded Stanford on Wednesday afternoon in Scottsdale. That same Stanford team that beat the Sun Devils into submission in early April awaits, presumably licking its chops.
ASU’s visit to Palo Alto was a bleak one but exciting nonetheless. Kyle Luckham was ejected after hitting a Cardinal batter in the head in the second inning. Willie Bloomquist was ejected moments later for passionately defending his pitcher. For those wondering, the ejection seemed to be grossly unjust. That game ended 8-0 in Stanford’s favor, with Alex Williams tossing a complete game shutout for the eventual regular-season champions. Williams will likely throw a couple of innings against ASU to begin Wednesday’s game.
After another loss on Saturday, the team met with ASU baseball legend Barry Bonds before Sunday’s contest. Bonds’ words ignited the bats, but the pitching was ghastly. Arizona State lost 16-10.
The PAC-12 tournament is double elimination, with an identical format to the College World Series. The fourth and fifth seeds, Arizona and Oregon, make up the rest of ASU’s side of the bracket. Winners play winners, and losers play losers until the winners of each bracket play for Pac-12 supremacy. It would be hard to bet on ASU to win a game with how they’ve played of late, but if there’s one thing this team has not been all year, it’s consistent. Never consistently good, but also never consistently bad. We’ll see how many more chapters the 2022 Sun Devils can write.
