For eight innings, Tracy Smith, wasn’t wrong. In speaking with reporters prior to Arizona State’s season-opener, the Sun Devil skipper, expressed a belief that ASU would rely on different methods to win baseball games in 2021 than they were accustomed to in recent years. After consecutive years in which Arizona State saw power-hitting bats depart their lineup as top-10 MLB draft picks, Smith claimed ASU would rely more on the pitching staff to win games this season.
On Friday night, Smith handed redshirt freshman Cooper Benson the ball and the left-hander took full advantage of the opportunity, making the seventh-year ASU head coach look like a prophet for his preseason predictions for the vast majority of the night. Benson stat line was impressive, to say the least: 6.0 IP, 8 K, 0 BB, 1 H, 0 R as he retired the final 17 batters he faced in the game.
With a variety of options to go to in the Friday night role, Smith’s first choice in Benson was every bit as good as the manager could have hoped for.
“He set the tone. He came out and did exactly what the starter should do, which is give the team a chance to win,” said Smith. After a hard-hit single with one out in the first inning, Benson retired 17-straight Hornets while displaying an impressive level of command and efficiency. “He went six innings strong and threw really, really well. No walks. If he does that consistently through the course of the season, you can live with that type of performance on a Friday night or a weekend start.”
“I thought I did a good job of (locating pitches),” Benson told reporters following ASU’s first loss of 2021. “Really felt good mixing the changeup and the fastball.”
Clean innings in the seventh and eighth from Brock Peery and Graham Osman gave Arizona State a 2-0 lead heading into the ninth. For eight innings, the new blueprint for winning games at Phoenix Municipal Stadium was on full display as the Sun Devil pitching staff executed flawlessly.
But in the ninth, disaster struck for redshirt freshman Cam Dennie.
The 6-foot-2 right-hander from Culver, Indiana, allowed a lead-off double to Martin Simard-Vincelli. Simard-Vincelli’s double turned the lineup over to Keith Torres, who struck out. Then, a loss of command led Dennie to walk one Sacramento State batter and hit another, setting up Dawsen Bacho for an 0-1 breaking ball, which he deposited over the left field fence for a go-ahead grand slam. Within 19 pitches, a 2-0 Sun Devil lead turned into a 4-2 Sun Devil deficit, wiping away Benson’s quality start and leaving the San Luis Obispo, California, native with a no-decision.
“Cam has been a guy that’s had a lot of success. With the right-handers coming up, we felt like that was the better matchup,” Smith said. “Falling behind takes away that advantage. The only thing that hurts you in that situation is walks where you construct an inning, and that’s exactly what happened.”
Arizona State’s offense – which manufactured just four hits all night – was unable to respond in the bottom of the ninth inning, squandering a two-out walk by Brian Kalmer to lose 4-2.
“Honestly, if we had that same scenario, we would do the same scenarios again,” said Smith of the decision to have Dennie close rather than redshirt junior Justin Fall.
The Sun Devils’ offensive production came via the bat of shortstop Drew Swift, who tripled to left center in the bottom of the fifth, scoring Sam Ferri and Hunter Haas. Described by Smith as the offensive catalyst for this season’s ASU squad, Swift’s triple came after he flew out to the right field fence in the third inning, just a few feet short of a two-run home run.
“The first at-bat, I wasn’t seeing it too well,” Swift admitted. “After that, I settled in and stayed with my approach and started seeing the ball a lot better.”
Some of the offensive struggles for a new-look Arizona State offense could be attributed to tentativeness at the plate, according to Smith. With a strike-throwing opposing pitching staff, Smith told reporters after the loss he believed the Sun Devils saw too many early pitches and found themselves trailing in the count often.
“It’s different once you get out there,” explained Drew Swift of the young Sun Devil hitters’ passive approach. Xavier transfer Allbry Major, who was slotted in the cleanup role for the Sun Devil lineup, went 0-for-4 in his Sun Devil debut while striking out twice. “When you’re out there for your first at-bat, it’s a lot different than what you think. Even myself, I would say I was a little too amped up.”
Regardless of the outcome, six innings of one-hit baseball can only be viewed as a good sign, according to Benson. In large part, the gut-punching opening night loss for the Sun Devils is being viewed as an example of good process, bad result.
“I think I did a good job of setting the tone for the weekend,” claimed Benson, after pitching six innings, allowing one hit, no walks, and striking out eight batters. “It’s a tough loss, obviously. It’s only one game. It sucks that it’s the first one, but we’ll be good.”
