ARLINGTON, Tex. - You can only flirt with fire for so long before you start to get burned.
Coming into this weekend’s set against two top ten teams in the nation, the biggest concern of Arizona State fans came in their pitching staff. A unit that had been tagged for double-digits in three of its first eight games, the Sun Devil arms were respectable through the first 16 innings of play. While their bats couldn’t contribute in a Friday loss to No. 7 Texas A&M, ASU would wake up with a six spot in the seventh to take a two-run lead into the waning innings against No. 5 TCU.
Unfortunately for Willie Bloomquist, his back-end arms couldn’t hold up for a little longer. In a sight similar to defeats against Santa Clara and Ohio State already this season, ASU relievers would allow the Horned Frogs to put up six runs of their own in the eighth before holding off a ninth-inning spark as the Sun Devils went down 11-9 on Saturday.
Notching just two hits off of one bat on Friday and having been held without a knock until the fifth inning on Saturday, ASU’s potent offense once again looked anemic to start. Starter Connor Markl kept his team within scoring distance in four solid innings, keeping the dangerous Frogs lineup off-balance with his signature circle changeup. Markl, though, would work hard to get through those frames mostly unhurt, as his pitch count was approaching 100 to start the fifth inning. TCU would get to him as that count increased in the fourth, as a fielder’s choices and walked in run opened the scoring in the purple and grey’s favor.
Pulled after a leadoff single in the fifth, freshman Adam Behrens would takeover and look to keep TCU’s now 2-0 lead where it was. Instead, the right-hander surrendered three runs on a two-run single and sacrifice fly, creating a 5-0 lead by the halfway point of the game.
While Brandon Compton got the goose egg out of the hit column in the bottom half, another clean inning from TCU starter Kole Klecker made a mere five-run deficit seem insurmountable with how the Sun Devils had swung the bats on the weekend.
Yet, in a game that can turn on a dime, ASU flipped the coin quickly. Scratching across their first run of the weekend in the second, the Sun Devil bats finally came off the plane in the seventh after two scoreless frames by Behrens. With Klecker out of the game, ASU jumped on a gassed TCU bullpen with more hits and runs in the single frame than they had in the game prior. Following a lineout by Isaiah Jackson, ASU would move the line for six consecutive hits from Ethan Mendoza batting seventh to Ryan Campos in the three-hole. The merry-go-round would end up yielding six runs for Arizona State in the seventh, flipping the script from trailing 5-1 into a 7-5 lead into the eighth.
Perhaps looking to ride the hot hand, Behrens unexpectedly came back out in the eighth, now looking to set up a save situation starting his fourth inning of relief. Taking advantage of seeing the freshman right-hander a second time, the Horned Frogs’ bats went to work in regaining momentum with a pair of seeing-eye singles from the bottom of the order before an obstruction call granted TCU a run to make it 7-6.
With the tying runs on base, Behrens would be relieved by left-hander Ben Jacobs. Going with a bunt from leadoff man Peyton Chatagnier, Jacobs would misfire first, loading the bases with nobody out. This error would spell disaster for Jacobs and ASU, as the sophomore allowed a sacrifice flyout to tie the game before TCU’s Kurtis Byrne, already with two hits on the night, gave the Frogs the lead for good with a two-run triple that barely cleared the glove of Harris Williams in left. Tacking two more runs on for insurance before Matt Tieding finished the inning, the Sun Devil bats once again now faced a four-run deficit an inning later.
After a quiet eighth, ASU came out intent on creating more chaos in the ninth. A Williams walk and McLain single (his third hit of the night) would provide optimism, and an RBI single from Kevin Karstetter would bring the tying run to the plate with two out. After working the count to 2-2, Isaiah Jackson had his trademark flair for the dramatic taken out of his hands, as a 2-2 fastball from Louis Rodriguez nicked the outside corner and snuffed out ASU’s ninth-inning rally.
With Jacobs’s critical error in the eighth and the seven free passes the Sun Devils would give out on Saturday, Bloomquist’s principle of filling the zone was the main culprit in the defeat. For the second straight weekend, a workable start from Connor Markl went by the wayside due to a bullpen collapse. While the bullet may be easier to bite in knowing that it was the No. 5 team in the country doing it to them this time, the lost opportunity at a marquee win won’t sit well with ASU on Saturday.
Even so, the Sun Devils rediscovered their usual selves in the batter’s box and will hope to keep that form, as well as a cleaner bullpen performance, on Sunday as they rematch with No. 5 Texas A&M, looking to salvage a victory this weekend while staying above .500 on the young season.
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