Willie Bloomquist strolled into the media room, trying to suppress a well-deserved smile. He exhaled as he sat down, then verbalized what most Arizona State fans were probably thinking. “I feel like I need a shot of whiskey, if I’m being honest,” he said first. The smile could no longer be contained.
About 20 minutes earlier, Bloomquist had leapt out of the dugout, fist pumping and screaming with the rest of his team as he watched Isaiah Jackson’s walk-off grand slam sail deep into the night. The dramatic ending capped yet another comeback victory for Arizona State, which trailed 7-3 in the middle innings. ASU’s 11-7 victory is its 26th win of the season, matching last year’s total. The superlatives are plenty, but these guys are going to enjoy this one for what it is.
“That’s every kid’s dream, bases loaded, two outs in the ninth. I blacked out; I didn’t know what was happening,” Jackson beamed. “1-9, we are a dangerous lineup. It was tough for me at the beginning of the year to flip that confidence, but a lot of guys have picked me up. They let me know I’m meant to be here. It’s helped.”
There was a negative subplot to this game, one that will be partially buried due to the late game heroics but would have been the headline had ASU dropped this one. The Sun Devils committed five errors Saturday night, leading to four unearned runs. Freshman shortstop Luke Hill was responsible for three, and his teammate up the middle, Luke Keaschall, booted one as well. ASU has been very solid for the most part defensively this season, but its lapses have seemed to come in bunches.
“Baseball is a contagious game,” Bloomquist explained. “Hitting defense, pitching it all seems to kind of snowball together. We’re talking about a young man who has played a really good shortstop all year long. He had a tough day today; you’re going to have young player moments. Bottom line, it’s fixable.”
Bloomquist, an infielder himself, offered some technical advice for his players when asked about how a night like this in the infield will be handled by the coaching staff.
“The old saying goes, keep those feet moving. If you stop your feet, the ball is going to play you; it’ll eat you up,” he explained. “We’ll take the infielders out there tomorrow morning, let them know they’re good. You can still catch a ground ball. Just move those feet.”
RHP Khristian Curtis threw the ball well for ASU, but he was the main victim of the sloppy defense. Of the six runs he surrendered, four were unearned. He did allow two earned runs, and each was very well earned. Oregon State’s Mikey Kane was the engine for both, blasting his fifth homer of the year to lead off the top of the second and his sixth of the year to lead off the top of the fifth. He was essentially the only Beaver to put a barrel on Curtis.
“I thought Khristian threw the ball real well tonight; we just kicked it around way too much behind him,” Bloomquist said. ASU desperately needed length out of its starter Saturday, and while Curtis had good stuff and kept OSU off balance, the errors, coupled with walks, cut his night short. “I thought he had the stuff to potentially get through six, seven innings; he just looked really good. But sloppy defense and again just getting his pitch count up way too fast.”
No matter how meticulously ASU attempted to climb back from a 5-1 hole that was the result of those four unearned Oregon State runs, the Beavers always had an answer in the middle innings. When Jackson shot his sixth home run of the season, and first of the night, to dead center in the fourth, Kane’s second of the night got the run right back. When ASU clawed back for one on a Tobias RBI double in the bottom of the fifth, Oregon State answered again with a run in the sixth.
In the home half of that frame, ASU made it stick. The comeback kids brought the sticks and did it with the middle of the order. With two outs and men on second and third, Luke Hill at least partially redeemed his terrible night in the field with a two-run single to right. After Nick McLain walked, Luke Keaschall ripped his second double of the night just fair down the left field line. McLain scored behind Hill all the way from first to tie the game, but Keaschall was cut down on his way to third.
“The resiliency of our guys and their willingness to bounce back from adversity was tremendous again,” Bloomquist said.
Tonight’s unsung hero is Blake Pivaroff. The former two-way player turned pitcher only has enjoyed a stellar 2023 campaign, and it paid off big time for ASU in this one. Pivaroff entered the tied ball game in the top of the seventh with the bases loaded and one out. He was dealing with Garrett Forrester, who just a day earlier had clubbed two home runs and had already collected a base knock in this one. Pivaroff got to 2-2 with his typical diet of hard fastballs and a nasty slider. Then, he sent Forrester packing with a grotesque change-up that he missed by almost a foot. He got the next batter to bounce out to first, ending the threat and keeping the game tied.
“I was just thinking fill up the zone, get out of there, and limit the damage,” Pivaroff calmly explained. “A lot more work has gone in on the pitching side for me, and that’s helped my confidence a ton.”
The change-up call to Forrester was a bold one but one that Bloomquist and pitching coach Sam Peraza made with conviction. “We kind of thought, righty on righty, change up? He hasn’t seen it yet, Yeah. Let’s do it,” he explained. Being able to go to guys he can trust late in games has been a luxury this season.
Bloomquist has said on several occasions that part of the reason he took this job was his desire to chase the high of playing, of being a part of a baseball team with a common goal. He got plenty of experience with the negatives in his first season, and 2023 has provided many more positives so far. He’s unwavering in his commitment to never being truly satisfied until the work is done, but he acknowledged that a night like tonight could allow perspective to seep in.
“You gotta take the good with the bad. The first half of the game, the last two games, I was wondering, gosh, am I doing a bad job with these guys? But the end result tonight, yeah. That’s why you do it.”
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