Ahead of Friday afternoon’s opening game in the Baton Rouge regional, Arizona State (37-18, 0-1 in Regional) manager Tracy Smith stressed the importance of staying in the winner’s bracket due to the team’s pitching depth, or lack thereof.
Instead, their worst nightmare came true, as the Sun Devils were routed 15-2 by the Southern Mississippi Golden Eagles (39-19, 1-0 in Regional), using seven pitchers in the game.
“We got to put this one behind,” Smith said following today’s game, “regroup and understand we got to face whoever it is tomorrow to stay alive in this thing.”
To put it in context, ASU used over half of their pitchers who made at least three appearances pitching for the team this season and each one pitched to at least three batters.
Of course, the flip side of that is Smith balanced the load pretty evenly after pulling Marsh, who went 4.2 innings pitched, allowed six hits, five earned runs, three walks and struck out seven in the loss.
“We got some good arms that we didn’t have to use today because (their lead) was so stretched out,” Smith said. “We’re in a good position to keep on fighting and not just piece things together, we feel like we have some legitimate options tomorrow and Sunday.”
No relief pitcher went longer than an inning for the Sun Devils, and no one exceeded 22 pitches thrown this game, which likely means that most, if not all of those pitchers should be available if needed Saturday afternoon.
“We tried to make some decisions strategically, pitching-wise, resting-wise,” Smith said. “We tried to get some guys off their feet, as you can tell, once it stretched out, because our mindset is we’ve got a lot of baseball left to play this weekend.”
Today, everything unraveled in the fifth inning for the Sun Devils, who allowed 12 runs on nine hits in the inning between three pitchers.
As a matter of fact, ASU actually had a lead prior to this debacle. After three-and-a-half scoreless innings, junior catcher Lyle Lin brought home junior center fielder Hunter Bishop on a sacrifice fly, getting the Sun Devils the first run of the game.
But Southern Miss’s response was overwhelming, and essentially buried ASU by the mid-point of the game.
“Just one of those crazy innings,” Smith said. “When you drop a 12-spot, that’s tough to chase.”
The first bad omen was senior shortstop Storme Cooper’s leadoff home run to left field, his first of the season and first time hitting one out since 2017.
Sophomore left fielder Gabe Montenegro hit a double on the next pitch, and from there the Golden Eagles would add two more off an RBI single from junior right fielder Matt Wallner, and then senior outfielder Hunter Slater would score on a wild pitch before Marsh was pulled from the game.
Freshman Blake Burzell would come in to pitch, and with two outs on the board it seemed like the Sun Devils had a chance to get out of the inning with minimal damage.
The damage was just getting started though, as USM rattled four consecutive hits off Burzell, including an RBI single from senior center fielder Fred Franklin, an RBI double from freshman third baseman Danny Lynch, followed by a two-run single from Cooper, who initially led off the inning.
Now trailing the Golden Eagles 7-1, Smith made another pitching change in bringing on freshman Erik Tolman, the third pitcher of the inning in which there was still two outs.
This wouldn’t stop the fiasco for USM, as Slater added a two-run single followed by a three-run dinger by Wallner in what was the second plate appearance of the inning for both guys.
The inning came to an end the next batter, but the Golden Eagles would plate 10 of their 12 runs in the inning with two outs, and 12 of 15 in the entire game- more on that later. USM batted around the order once, and were four batters away from doing it twice.
The 12 runs allowed that inning was the most any Pac-12 team had allowed in one frame all season, and would prove to be the fatal inning for Marsh and ASU.
On the other side, USM freshman starter Gabe Shepard was dominant until the sixth inning, as he went 5.2 IP, allowed six hits, two earned runs, three walks and struck out four in the winning effort.
“Their guy threw really well today, kept us off-stride,” Smith said.
Four of those hits, one of the walks and one of the runs he allowed all came in that sixth inning, as he had cruised through ASU’s lineup for the most part before that.
Sophomore first baseman Spencer Torkelson hit an opposite field home run to lead off that inning for the Sun Devils, which put him alone at number three on ASU’s all-time home runs list with 47.
Possibly the only other bright spot in this game for ASU, if you want to call it that, was junior third-string catcher Nick Cheema picking up his first RBI of the 2019 campaign, on an RBI single in the bottom of the ninth.
Obviously, it was too little far too late, especially after Lynch scorched a three-run homer to right field off ASU’s freshman righty Luke La Flam in the eighth, with two outs nonetheless.
“I think we get deeper into this thing and get deeper into some of the pitching of other teams, I like our chances with our offense,” Smith said. “We’ll figure it out, we’ll watch this game too, you know see who we have tomorrow and then also this will also be on that to stay alive and get to the Sunday piece of it because we feel we get to that day, we got a pretty good shot.”
The Sun Devils will likely turn to sophomore righty Boyd Vander Kooi (4-4, 5.26 ERA) in tomorrow’s action, which begins at 10 a.m. Arizona time. They will face the loser of tonight’s LSU-Stony Brook matchup.
