Usually, when a team loses its Friday and Saturday starters, the daunting task of filling that void is met with uncertainty and often inexperience. For ASU, those spots were not only filled. The starting pitching and bullpen depth, at least on paper, has been substantially improved. Arizona State’s pitching staff is going to look a lot different in 2023, and that is probably for the best.
The collective effort was the issue with the 2022 stable of arms. No one pitcher was especially awful, though no starter was consistently good. Each had his tremendous struggles at times, inhibiting the Sun Devils from being able to truly get hot at any point during Bloomquist’s inaugural campaign. In response to this inconsistency (which is describing it mildly), the ASU staff added nine pitchers via transfer, seven of which came from other division one programs.
The most impressive arm of the premiere bunch is left-hander Ross Dunn. With Florida State last year, he struck out 77 batters in 48 innings pitched. His low to mid-nineties fastball is his bread and butter, complemented by a devastating slider. This one-two punch, coupled with his experience as a high leverage arm at the division one level, will immediately make him one of the best pitchers in the Pac-12. Right now, he’s focused on making sure he’s ready to be someone his teammates can count on to give them a chance to win each time he toes the rubber.
“I’m just hoping to bring a consistent win day,” Dunn said. “On the weekends, I just want to have a confident day where we know I’m going to shut down bats, put a lot of zeros up on the scoreboard for us and help us get a lot of wins that way.”
He’ll be new to the Pac-12, but he says his experience playing in some of college baseball’s biggest games in the ACC and NCAA postseason translate to success out west. “I’ve seen a lot of stuff,” he reflected. “I like to pick guys’ brains and just let them pick mine.”
How did ASU, historically not a pitcher’s destination and coming off one of its worst seasons in the last 50 years, land guys like Dunn, Owen Stevenson, and Khristian Curtis in the portal? A relentless commitment to pursuing the position and personally recruiting guys that fit not only based on their stuff but based on character that parallels Willie Bloomquist’s vision for his alma mater.
“Willie and Sam (Peraza) work really well together. I was able to get along with them really well really early,” Dunn explained. “I want to get the most out of this place. Willie has an unbelievable amount of baseball information to share, even though he’s not a pitching coach. And I just really liked the culture of the place. I’ve wanted to come here for some time, and I just got the opportunity, and I took it.”
Khristian Curtis and Owen Stevenson are two other transfer arms who figure to be in the mix for weekend starter jobs. Curtis comes from Texas A&M, while Stevenson left San Francisco. Both are right-handers but contrast when it comes to their stuff. Curtis, who is coming off of Tommy John surgery, had been up to 97 mph with his fastball prior to his injury. Stevenson can bring it, too but relies on a nasty two-pitch off-speed repertoire to boost his strikeout numbers. His change-up and slider both drew whistles from a sparse crowd of spectating peers during a bullpen session on Wednesday afternoon. If Curtis is fully healthy, which all signs point to at this point in the fall, he’ll be a weekend starter as well.
Catcher Ryan Campos had trouble picking which of his new teammates on the mound has impressed him the most. “They’re all nasty,” he said with a smile. “I’ve seen some really dirty stuff from all of them. It feels good.”
Left-hander Timmy Manning would be the headliner of any normal transfer class. Last season at Florida, He logged 22 innings out of the bullpen and compiled a 4.56 ERA while striking out 26. He’ll likely work in long relief out of the bullpen for ASU, though he started seven games for the Gators last spring. A dependable left-handed reliever eluded Bloomquist for the entirety of the 2022 season. Manning will immediately provide a high leverage left-handed presence in the ASU bullpen. Nolan Lebamoff is another arm that will compete for a back end bullpen job. Peraza described the Valparaiso transfer as “a guy who can compete in the zone in any situation.” That should be music to fans’ ears after the command issues the bullpen suffered through in 2022.
There are some returners, of course. Redshirt senior Tyler Meyer was the midweek starter last year; he’ll compete for the Sunday job. Junior Blake Pivaroff will be a bullpen arm again as he fully transitions from two-way player to pitcher only. Redshirt junior Christian Bodlovich, dubbed the “fireman” last season for his ability to come into tough spots and escape with runners on base, will assume a similar role. He’s looking forward to leading as one of the elder statesmen on the pitching staff for the first time in his college career.
“I’ve learned a lot from some guys who came before me,” Bodlovich said. “I’m just trying to help the new guys, get them used to what we do here. Things have been going really well so far.”
