A team near-whole of newcomers isn’t going to find its identity right away. While a talented collection of players in the first-base dugout at Phoenix Municipal Stadium has gelled well through 15 games, it’s clear that Arizona State (7-8, 1-2 Pac-12) is still missing an ability or two from fulfilling the program’s high expectations.
If you ask head coach Willie Bloomquist, it’s that victorious attitude that is missing from his clubhouse. This shortcoming would ultimately be the Sun Devils’ downfall on Sunday, as Arizona State lost a few too many pitches in a narrow defeat at the hands of Oregon (11-4, 2-1), dropping their first home series of the season.
“Didn’t play bad, but not good enough to win,” Bloomquist said postgame. “That song and dance gets old really fast. I can’t will it into these guys. It’s a killer instinct you have to figure out ways to win games. You can’t play just good enough to lose and almost win…Doing the best we can to put these guys in the right situations, but at some point in time, someone’s got to step up. We’re close, but people around here don’t want to hear close.”
After trading late-game rallies to split the Friday and Saturday contests, both the Ducks and Devils entered Sunday keen on beginning Pac-12 play on the right foot. After getting out on the wrong one with an 11.88 ERA through his first three starts of the season, ASU starter Tyler Meyer came out of the gates excellently.
Through three frames, the sophomore right-hander had held a dangerous Oregon lineup hitless with a sharp-falling changeup taking him through the order cleanly. Backed up with a pair of RBI doubles by Brandon Compton in the second and Harris Williams in the third, Meyer got the first two outs of the fourth comfortably and looked to be on cruise control.
Just as Meyer got ahead of Bennett Thompson with two out and nobody on, the train would slowly yet drastically come off the tracks. Losing a curveball out of his hand on a 1-1 pitch, Meyer plunked Thompson, and Oregon would follow it up with a double from Jeffrey Heard and a walk to Maddox Molony to load the bases. Jacob Walsh, the Ducks leader in home runs thus far, lived up to his reputation and made the extra opportunity count with a grand slam to left field.
In a cruel twist for Meyer, Walsh’s contact hadn’t looked so devastating off the bat, but its end result casts a dark cloud for Bloomquist on what had been a bounce-back performance for Meyer.
“He threw the ball better today,” Bloomquist noted. “In the fourth inning, had a walk, a hit, then a Muni home run to left field where he made a pretty good pitch on. It’s not the home run that killed us; it’s the walk and the hit prior that leaves a scar. That’s what stings, and we have to eliminate those things.”
“Kind of the theme of most of the games we’ve played this year is the punishment we get because we do it to ourselves,” Ryan Campos added. “That’s just growing pains to address moving forward.”
Even after the gut punch of the grand slam’s nature, which put Oregon ahead for the first time of the afternoon, ASU was quick to respond with the bats after Matt Tieding relieved Meyer after the fourth. Oregon’s one run in the fifth would be countered by consecutive round-trippers off the bats of Williams and Campos, trimming Oregon’s lead down to 5-4. Combining for five hits, four RBIs, and three home runs (two from Campos), the 1-2 punch at the top of the order was clearly doing its job for ASU.
However, the Sun Devils newfound momentum would be snuffed out instantly. Coming on to pitch to the lefties due up in the sixth, Matt Cornelius would be tagged for a pair of hits and walks, plating Oregon’s sixth run while loading the bases with nobody out. Moments after cutting Oregon’s lead from three to one, the Ducks were able, courtesy of Cornelius’s ineffectiveness in his first outing of the weekend. The notion of the preceding home runs being just solo shots, coupled with Cornelius’s struggles, shines a light to Bloomquist on the inconsistencies being shown up and down the roster.
“Some guys are doing great things, but we’re not putting it all together as a team,” Bloomquist said. “We’re not putting one at-bat together to the next, some guys are coming out of the bullpen and throwing the ball great and others are giving up two hits or two walks. Can’t survive like that.”
Luckily for the maroon and gold, Ryan Schiefer once again played the hero in an emergency call to the bullpen and was able to limit the damage behind him to allow only one more run in the inning before tossing scoreless innings in the 7th and 8th after.
“Just going one at a time,” Schiefer said of his successful approach. “Can’t get the next guy before he’s even up. Just doing what I can to get ahead.”
Getting one score closer off Campos’s second home run of the day in the seventh, the Sun Devils engine again revved up in an eventful eighth inning. Following Schiefer’s zero in the top half, walks to Isaiah Jackson and Williams with a single by Steven Ondina in between would load the bases with two away.
With the tying and go-ahead runs on base, the weight of the game was now on Campos’s shoulders again. Facing a hard-thrower in his second inning of work, Logan Mercado challenged Campos over-and-over, who would fight off pitches and run the count full. On a 3-2 breaking ball that hung upstairs, Campos skied a deep fly into right field that looked like a go-ahead grand slam of his own, but the ball died about 10 feet in front of the right field wall for the final out of the inning.
“Missed it just a little bit,” Campos recalled of the fateful swing.
With the air knocking down a potential Sportscenter-level clout, the wind also came out of ASU’s sails. Anson Aroz would add an insurance home run for good measure in the ninth before Logan Mercado slammed the door of defeat in the Devils’ face in the bottom half.
Having lost in the fashions they did on Saturday and Sunday, Arizona State is eyeing the next step of being able to put teams away like it couldn’t in a missed chance this weekend. Having let go of a very plausible sweep of a reigning regional champion, a feeling of deflation is widespread in the clubhouse.
“This series burns,” Harris Williams said. “It sits in my stomach funny. I think I speak for everybody when I say that I don’t like the way that the series went. While we’re not worried at all, and have high hopes for the rest of the season, we don’t take series’s like this lightly. It’s not something that we’re just going to flush. You never really lose that gut feeling of ‘God, we should’ve had that one.’ We’re going to carry that for the rest of the season.”
What Bloomquist hopes won’t continue on this spring is these close losses. Now 7-8 on the still young season, Sunday’s defeat marks ASU’s fourth loss within one swing (four runs). While remaining competitive against national powers seen in Texas and with Oregon is promising, Bloomquist is allowing zero tolerance for silver linings, challenging his players to take the next step to ensure as many victories as possible.
“Once you start accepting silver linings and moral victories, that becomes the standard. We can’t accept that,” Bloomquist emphasized. “We try to take the positives out of things, but at the end of the day, it’s all about W’s. Right now, we’re not getting enough of them.”
Still, the progress is notable from Bloomquist’s perspective even as the Sun Devils head into a midweek matchup with New Mexico below .500. With zero doubt of the fire and desire of his players, Bloomquist sees the light at the end of the tunnel to win competitive games like Sunday’s. Yet, he acknowledges there’s still plenty of work to be done before ASU emerges into the light.
“The blood and guts, winner mentality, we’re getting close,” Bloomquist said. “We have great kids in there who truly care about this program. Finding that last piece and doing whatever it takes to win, we have to find a way to get that done. Very close, but not there yet.”
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