On March 9, Willie Bloomquist woke up three weeks into a pivotal second season with a 6-7 record, his team having dropped its last five games in uninspiring fashion. The early skid had fans glazed over, seeing bloody flashbacks of a 2022 campaign that saw Arizona State dig an early hole from which it was never truly able to recover. Whatever the message was on that Thursday, it had the effect of a George Patton rallying cry. Since that day, the Sun Devils have gone 18-2, won each series they've played, and swept three times. ASU hasn't dropped a home game since losing the finale of an embarrassing sweep to UC Irvine on March 5.
This remarkable turnaround has fans stepping off the ledge and thinking big. Thinking postseason. Ranked in the top 25 by D1baseball.com as well as Baseball America, ASU's postseason resume has steadily increased with each impressive win over the last month. It's the first time Arizona State has been ranked since Bloomquist took over. His club responded to this distinction by laying an egg in the first six innings of its crosstown midweek tilt with GCU before storming back with a nine-run eighth inning to beat the Lopes in an instant classic.
We know a lot about this team. But with the schedule heating up during the back half of the Pac-12 slate, we're about to find out a lot more. Arizona State has taken care of business, that's all you can do, but it's worth noting that ASU's first four conference foes in Utah, Arizona, Cal, and Washington State, currently occupy the bottom four positions in the Pac-12 standings. Here's how the final 23 games of the season look for ASU, and what they'll need to do to simply make the tournament, how they can win a Pac-12 title, and a shockingly realistic path to postseason baseball at Phoenix Muni.
April 14-16 - @ Washington (19-10 overall, 6-6 Pac-12)
ASU should take two out of three and win this series. Doing that would be a road series win that could age well.
ASU will see an old friend this weekend in Seattle. Huskies head coach Jason Kelly served as the pitching coach for three seasons on Tracy Smith's ASu staff before leaving for the same role at LSU during the coaching transition in Tempe. Kelly's Washington club has had an up and down 2023. Utah and Arizona are the only two common opponents in the rearview for both UW and ASU. Just like the Sun Devils, Washington took two of three from the Utes in Salt Lake City. Last weekend in Tucson, UW took the Thursday series opener from the Cats before dropping the final two and the series.
Washington and ASU have nearly identical team ERAs, hovering just above the 5.00 mark. Where ASU's advantage will show up is with its starting pitching and lineup depth. Washington's pitching staff may be a tad better from top to bottom, but the Friday and Saturday punch of Ross Dunn and Khristian Curtis, complimented by a nicely developing back-end formula of Blake Pivaroff and Owen Stevenson, can overpower Washington's lineup when the arms are at their best.
If ASU can keep the impressive trio of Will Simpson, Cam Clayton, and AJ Guerrero from truly hurting them, the Sun Devils should be able to keep Washington from putting up crooked numbers this weekend. The bulk of the Huskies' offensive production has come from those three. A solid trio of weekend starters will test the ASU bats. Bloomquist has talked about the importance of plate discipline a lot this season. That will be tested big time in this series. UW starters have issued just 45 walks in 117 innings. They can and will beat you if you help them out by chasing their intentional waste pitches.
I'll have more detailed previews of the rest of the matchups as they approach, but here is the remainder of the schedule and a brief guide to what ASU must do to achieve its goals.
Over its final 23 games, 18 of which are tough Pac-12 games, Arizona State must simply tread water to get a tournament bid in the field of 64. As long as the Sun Devils don't collapse down the stretch, the program will return to its rightful place in the field of 64. This is the standard and was honestly considered the bare minimum for this season, considering the off-season roster makeover. 10-13 in the final 23 would get Arizona State into the tournament; anything worse than that would be dicey.
Currently ranked No. 23, ASU will have every chance to bolster its resume against the Pac-12s best to crack the top 16 and be selected as a regional host. Last season, all 16 hosts finished in the top 30 in RPI. ASU is at 33 currently, with the quality of opponents on the schedule ahead, leaving a ton of room to soar up that chart.
In order to host, ASU won't be able to lose more than two of the next six series. Here is a realistic route to postseason baseball at Phoenix Muni.
Win five of six games against Washington and Oregon State. Win both, sweep one.
Take two of three on the road in Eugene. Not a sweepable series, but taking two of three up there would be an excellent road series win.
Be competitive with Stanford. It's a home series; avoid a sweep at all costs. Make sure you take a game, and if you get greedy and win the series, then you're really cooking with gas.
Win or sweep at USC. They've been much better than expected, but ASU is more talented. If you want to host, you have to take this series.
Take one or two from UCLA. Same as Stanford, avoid a sweep and try to get greedy with a series win.
Win at least two games in Scottsdale. If ASU is one of the final three or four teams in that tournament, it's enough not to affect them negatively in the eyes of the committee.
Seems simple, right? If the Sun Devils follow that list closely, Phoenix Municipal Stadium will be baptized with postseason baseball for the first time in its nearly a decade as the home of ASU baseball. And how fun that would be.
A regular season Pac-12 title, which is how the conference crowned a baseball champion for the entirety of its history before the inauguration of the conference tournament last season, is certainly within reach for Arizona State at this point. ASU is tied with unanimous preseason Pac-12 No. 1 Stanford atop the conference standings at 10-2. Should they still be at the top when those two teams meet May 5-7, that series may very well decide the regular season champ and No. 1 seed in the tournament in Scottsdale. ASU has significant work to do these next three weeks before the home date with the Cardinal.
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