The series and the tone of the early season hung in the balance. After unlucky at-bats and a collective struggle to keep runs off the board, Arizona State entered Sunday needing a win to split the series with Ohio State. A projected middle-of-the-pack group in a small-bid Big Ten, the Buckeyes had gone toe-to-toe with the Sun Devils all weekend and rode a pair of big innings to take an 8-6 lead into the sixth.
Loading the bases with two away, redshirt freshman Brandon Compton would step to the plate with the weight of hope from the first-base dugout on his shoulders. Facing left-hander Hunter Shaw, Compton, who had come off the bench to avoid the lefty-lefty matchup on Thursday and Friday, was only thinking about moving the line.
“In that moment, bases loaded no outs, I was just trying to do a team job,” Compton said. “Put it in play, no double plays, get some runs. That’s what we needed.”
Delivering a fastball over the plate, Shaw would watch the cowhide collide with Compton’s bat, sending the sphere well over the Mayo Clinic sign in right field for a game-changing grand slam.
“It was the type of lefty we were facing Thursday. I was playing the matchup on the first guy,” Bloomquist mentioned of the decision earlier in the week. “That’s not to say that I told Brandon he can’t hit lefties. Just going with the right-hander today. So be ready to go off the bench. He’s going to face his fair share of left-handers and today, he essentially won us the game with that big blast.”
Compton kept the approach and impact simple.
“Got something over the plate and I hit it,” he shrugged.
With Compton’s titanic clout, the Sun Devils took a 10-8 lead into the seventh, but threatened to give it up as the Buckeyes loaded the bases off of Adam Behrens. With one out, Bloomquist signaled to the bullpen for freshman closer Cole Carlon. Originally seeming to be a monstrous ask for a seven-out save, a previous agreement between Bloomquist and the Ohio State coaching staff agreed to a “drop dead” time of 3 P.M., as the Buckeyes flight was scheduled to depart the Valley at 5.
“The big pitch was there in the seventh, getting us out of that jam,” Bloomquist noted. “Guys turned a great double play behind him. The eighth wasn’t as sharp as we’d like it to be, that’s something he’s going to have to learn how to do. If we’re going to get to where we want to be, he’s going to have to go more than one inning, and be sharp for longer than one inning.”
While challenging the freshman to grow up fast, Bloomquist hasn’t missed the signs of improvement the hard-throwing lefty has shown so quickly.
“He’s learning. For a freshman to go and be thrown into games, everyone feels the emotions and the intensities going up and down. To get thrown in there and try to close it out, all the pressure is on, he’s handling it well. He’ll get better as we keep going.”
Of course, the efforts of Compton and Carlon are due in part to the work of their teammates. In his second start in return from a shoulder injury, Tyler Meyer twirled a strong four-plus innings on the mound, despite being bitten by four unearned runs in the second frame. Shaping his breaking ball and forcing weak contact for the most part, Meyer laid a solid foundation for the bullpen considering the circumstances.
“That’s how the game goes sometimes,” Meyer noted. “Just have to bounce back and deal with what the game throws at you.”
Being one of the elder statesmen of a young staff, Bloomquist commended Meyer’s veteran status in such a situation as an example for the group, while tapping into Meyer’s resilience through adversity as well.
“The positives are he’s remained healthy and the ball is coming out well,” Bloomquist stated. “He doesn’t have his pinpoint accuracy like he normally does, but I think that’s going to continue to come with the more reps that he gets out there. The fact is that he’s out here and being a veteran prescence for us, trying to gut out and eat up innings.”
“There’s something to it, having been there before. Having rough outings, have to keep going and keep the team in it to give us a chance,” Meyer continued. “I didn’t feel like I was a fish out of water. I strive to be an example for guys. Glad that it’s working.”
As Meyer left a workable situation for Adam Behrens to relieve him in the fifth, the Sun Devil offense produced early and often to back him up.
Having put together plenty of quality at-bats Saturday, ASU’s bats made it show in the box score quickly on Sunday. Ryan Campos and Jacob Tobias notched back-to-back doubles to bring in two for ASU in the first, before Isaiah Jackson made it three with a hard-hit single.
Not to be outdone, Ohio State answered back in the second, as a rare error at short from Steven Ondina would spark a four-run frame from the Buckeyes. Showing their valor in Thursday and Saturday victories, and again in roaring back multiple times Sunday, Bloomquist gave the scrappy Ohio State group credit in the challenge they posed.
“They’re a lot better team than I was anticipating coming in,” Bloomquist admitted. “We got challenged. I knew we were going to, but to that extent, it was a dogfight, every game against them.”
The seesaw theme of the weekend would continue to tip both ways Sunday, as ASU responded with a two-run single from Tobias (one of three hits and two of three RBIs) to go back in front 5-4. Tipping back, OSU would jump on top with a three-run blast by Ryan Miller , before adding onto the lead with an RBI double from Tyler Pettorini in the sixth, before Brandon Compton broke the game open in the last half, and Carlon finished it off.
Being tested by quality teams so early in the season, a contest like Sunday’s spoke to not only the nature of college baseball, but the reason for ASU’s stacked slate.
“College baseball is up and down,” Meyer said of the contest. “Every game is so intense. Hard thing to stay consistent and stay resilient in.
“Every single game has been tough. End of the day, it’s good to end on a high note. Take that into this weekend.”
Taking the high notes of a 5-3 start, with eight games in ten days, is nothing to be ashamed of, but the team knows they are just scratching their full potential that they will look to continue to unlock in matchups with top-ten schools in Texas A&M and TCU next weekend.
“We haven’t played or best baseball,” Bloomquist noted. “We haven’t pitched as well as we can yet. End of the day, after jumping out to a three-run lead, giving it up immediately, bouncing back, giving it up again, these are all character building wins if we can come out on top. We are being battle-tested, and we’re figuring out that every little thing matters.”
“When we start picking up on that,” Meyer said, “We’re going to take off.”
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