Bullpen woes haunt Sun Devils in the ninth, drop second game to BYU

In the top of the ninth, with ASU leading BYU 4-2, Sun Devils sophomore righty Brock Peery entered the game, hoping to shut things down for his squad and equalize the series at one win apiece after suffering a loss of the same score on Thursday.

The sophomore cruised through the first two batters he faced, striking out both. BYU freshman infielder Ozzie Pratt stepped up to the plate in his first-ever collegiate at-bat, the final chance for the Cougars. After a pair of monster hacks, and with Pratt down to his final strike, Peery hit him in the elbow. BYU went on to rattle off two singles to load the bases before sophomore shortstop Brock Watkins laced a ball into right field. Redshirt sophomore right fielder Kai Murphy couldn’t get to it. Watkins cashed in three runs via a triple, giving BYU the lead. The Sun Devils would walk in another run later in the frame.

Despite a last-ditch effort to cut the BYU lead to one in the bottom of the ninth, the Arizona State bullpen would come back to haunt a valiant effort from the offense and junior transfer lefty starting pitcher Adam Tulloch, melting down and giving way to a 6-5 BYU victory.

“It’s tough because you want to set an expectation to win games like this,” ASU manager Willie Bloomquist said postgame. “We’re not going to settle for mediocrity… Our expectations are to win games like this, and we have to figure out guys that want to get it done when it counts.”

Arizona State got the bats rolling early with sophomore center fielder Joe Lampe’s leadoff double. Graduate student first baseman Conor Davis would drive home his teammate from the third spot in the lineup, slotting a single through the right side, scoring the first run of the game for Arizona State.

In the third, sophomore shortstop Hunter Haas reached on a full-count walk, his first of three free trips to first on the night. Haas advanced to second on a failed pickoff attempt before moving to third with Lampe’s second hit of the night, a single through the left side. Another BYU defensive blemish, a wild pitch, allowed Haas to score and Lampe to advance to third. Lampe would score following a Davis walk and a single from freshman designated hitter Jacob Tobias.

The Sun Devils would threaten again on the basepaths in the fifth, again triggered by a Haas leadoff walk, and advance to second on a failed pickoff attempt. Sophomore third baseman Ethan Long singled, moving Haas to third; however, there would be no wild pitch to fully complete the identical cycle. Instead, Davis was walked before Tobias and sophomore second baseman Sean McLain went down in rapid succession, stranding the bases loaded.

ASU would strand two more in the seventh. After nine innings, Arizona State left ten runners on base.

A bright spot on the night was the performance of redshirt junior West Virginia transfer lefty Adam Tulloch. After throwing four and a third innings against Dixie State in the home opener last Friday, Tulloch showed off his best stuff through an extended performance a week later against the Cougars. Due to efforts of preserving his starters from injury after the nightmare beginning to the 2021 season for the Sun Devil pitching staff, no starter had gone deeper than the fifth inning, but Tulloch stretched his efforts out all the way into the seventh before he was pulled. In the sixth, Bloomquist went out to the mound for an extended visit with the lefty. With the crowd prepared to welcome Tulloch to the dugout after holding BYU to just two runs, the ASU skipper left him in the game for more.

“Tulloch has been great,” Bloomquist said. “I debated on taking him out there, but I wanted to gauge where he was at and how he felt. He said he felt great and wanted to keep going… He was in the red area (with pitch count), but I trusted him to get another hitter or two out, and he did outstanding.”

“It’s awesome to have a coach that can come out and put his trust in you,” Tulloch said of Bloomquist’s visit. “For someone to have faith in you that means a lot to a pitcher. I told him I wanted to stay in that ballgame, and he let me.”

“Tonight felt good. I’m here to be a starting pitcher, and a starting pitcher’s goal is to be out there for at least six or seven innings and keep your team in the ballgame. I feel like I did that.”

Tulloch finished the night after six and two-thirds innings, giving up two hits, two runs – both earned – four walks and eight strikeouts. He threw 106 pitches to 25 batters. His only real blunder came in the fourth when BYU logged a single walk and then a two-run double to put the Cougars within one run. He left the game with two runners on – a situation inherited by sophomore righty Jared Glenn, who escaped the jam and fought through the eighth as well.

Ultimately, it came down to Peery to shut things down and send it home in the ninth, but his lack of execution would prove vital in the ASU loss, as is the theme with this team through six games in 2022. Redshirt sophomore lefty Graham Osman, who filled in for Peery, ultimately let another run slip by with a walk on a full count in the ninth.

“I can live with the hits,” Bloomquist noted. “Brock is a ground ball pitcher, so that’s what’s going to happen on occasion. It’s the hit batter that ultimately ended up (hurting us the most). We also walked in another guy. That’s what killed us.”

“With the bullpen, I’m not going to make an issue out of it that we are scuffling there. For me, this is a team thing, and if you look at the big picture, we have to extend our lead when we have opportunities to not put our bullpen in such critical situations where every pitch matters.”

With the loss, BYU collected the series win on Friday night. First pitch of game three is set for 1 p.m. on Saturday afternoon.