The emotional hangover of a dramatic comeback capped off by a walk-off grand slam turned out to be too much for Arizona State (25-23, 13-13 Pac-12) to overcome. Possibly drained from one of the more chest-pounding contests of its season, the Sun Devils had the life sucked out of them by the Washington (18-21-1, 9-14) bats, who totaled 14 runs, enough to hold off a late response in a 14-9 win for the Huskies on Saturday.
“My experience is you usually use that (walk-off) momentum to play well.” head coach Willie Bloomquist said. “We dug ourselves a 14-1 whole, tough to bounce out of that.”
Having gone seven straight outings of five-plus innings, Connor Markl’s strong form weakened in a hurry on Saturday. Bit by a solo home run from AJ Guerrero in the first, Markl struggled to hit the strike zone consistently in the second, surrendering three walks. An error at third by Demera and a trio of singles opened the floodgates on the Sun Devils early, as the Huskies totaled five in the frame. Aiva Arquette’s single, his first hit of the series, did most of the damage, bringing in two on a single past third base.
Not stopping there, UW jumped on Markl again in the third, putting two runners on for AJ Guerrero, who took Markl over the wall for his second home run of the night and chased Markl from the contest in the third. After logging three consecutive quality starts, Markl surrendered eight earned runs in easily his shortest and worst outing of the season.
“It wasn't his night,” Bloomquist said. “Fastball command wasn't there. For him to be effective with the rest of his repertoire in his arsenal, he’s got to have fastball command. Didn’t have it tonight. It’s going to happen.”
Bloomquist would turn to Matt Cornelius to try to stop the bleeding, and the left-hander partially closed the gash, but four more runs seeped out in the fourth and fifth thanks to four free passes.
All the while, the Sun Devil offense had no answer for Washington starter Calvin Kirchoff. Kirchoff’s mix of breaking stuff kept ASU hitters off balance as Kirchoff worked through the first three frames. Dotting his various pitches all throughout the strike zone, ASU hitters were left guessing at the plate.
“He threw a lot of strikes tonight, mixed his pitches really well,” Jacob Tobias said. “When you do that as a starter, it becomes much more difficult to stay on every single pitch.”
Eventually, the Sun Devils began to figure Kirchoff out slowly. Nick McLain stayed hot, crushing his third home run in as many games in the fourth before adding an RBI single in the fifth to get ASU on the board. Tobias followed him in the fifth with a two-run home run, putting life in the offense despite trailing 14-4.
Washington was kept from answering by Jonah Giblin, who tossed five shutout innings with seven strikeouts in relief. This was a welcomed outing for a veteran arm that hadn’t had a strong season to that point.
With Giblin dealing, the offense was given the space to answer, and Steven Ondina turned heads in the sixth with a three-run clout to cut the deficit to seven. While two more runs would come across in the eighth and ninth for ASU, it was simply too little, too late to overcome the trench they dug themselves early.
Having trailed by as much as 13, Bloomquist was complimentary of his team’s resilience to keep battling in defeat while considering the possible energy taken out of the team on Friday.
“That obviously was ugly, but the fact that we battled back and made it kind of interesting there late…I’m happy but disappointed in how we dug ourselves a hole earlier.”
The players, at least Tobias, certainly felt the weight of Friday’s excitement could have dragged ASU down in its Saturday defeat.
“You can never tell for sure, but the way that we preach, we expect there not to be (letdown),” Tobias said. “Especially with a game like that, it is tough to get back the next day. But win or lose, we know that when we leave here at the end of the night, it’s on to the next.”
Despite taking such a substantial defeat considering Washington’s record, the Sun Devils have the opportunity to take the series on Sunday. With Hunter Omlid on the mound, Bloomquist and company are keen on turning the page and taking it one game at a time.
“They’re ready to turn the page and try to win a series tomorrow,” Bloomquist emphasized. “We understand where we’re at, but you go to control what you can control…Our guys are going to keep scrapping.”
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