On paper, Friday night’s pitching matchup should’ve favored the visiting Washington State Cougars. With head coach Tracy Smith tabbing right-handed freshman Brock Peery with his first career start, conventional wisdom pointed toward a Cougar advantage. After all, the Cougars were sending junior Brandon White to the mound as their weekend-opening starter.
Just a week prior, White had gone to Corvallis and thrown seven innings of one-run ball, defeating a ranked Oregon State team with an impressive seven-strikeout performance. With a 3-0 record and 2.49 earned run average, the Cougars’ 6-foot-8 right-hander set up to be a tough task for the Sun Devil offense. Instead, ASU’s lineup jumped on White early with four consecutive hits to start the night. On the first pitch he saw, center fielder Joe Lampe flicked a double down the left field line.
The second Sun Devil White would face was shortstop Drew Swift, who worked the count full before singling up the middle for the night’s opening run. With Swift running on an 0-1 fastball, redshirt freshman Sean McClain drilled a double into left-center for an RBI. Freshman Ethan Long kept the offensive rolling with a hard-hit single to left field, scoring three early ASU runs before White could even record an out.
“It was huge,” said McClain, who went 2-for-4 with 2 RBI and a walk. “It started with Joe Lampe. Like I’ve said, (hitting coach) Michael Earley does a good job of putting us in a good position. We’ve been working hard in the cages, and it shows.”
Spotted with an early four-run lead, Peery was able to pound the strike zone frequently throughout the night, working quickly through the Cougar lineup and avoiding any serious trouble in his first start as a Sun Devil.
“Going and throwing the first half (inning) and them putting up four runs it definitely took stress off,” Peery said. “I was able to go off that, and it kept me going.”
With Smith’s admitted goal of getting six to nine outs out of Peery in what the right-hander claimed was the first start of his pitching career, the Sun Devils got more than what they were originally asking for as Peery ate up the bulk of the workload in a 10-0 Sun Devil win.
“(Peery) gave his team a chance to win tonight,” said Smith. In six and two thirds of work, the Peoria, Arizona, native struck out five Cougars while walking none, throwing 53 strikes on an efficient 70 pitches. “Very proud of Brock’s performance. That was big time.”
In the top half of the second, fourth, and fifth innings, Peery allowed the first WSU batter he faced to reach base via singles, with no damage coming of it. In the sixth, Washington State threatened with back-to-back one-out doubles, but failed to score after freshman third baseman Hunter Haas fielded a ground ball and dove to tag out Collin Montez as the Cougars’ right fielder attempted to return to third base.
Haas’ diving effort was one of a few brilliant plays from the ASU defense on a night of sound, fundamental baseball. In ASU’s series-opening blowout, the Sun Devils had no errors, flashing the leather at times while making the necessary plays look routine.
“It’s easy to play defense when somebody’s pitching it that good,” explained McClain.
Following a trip to Oregon which saw the Sun Devils open Pac-12 play with a 1-2 record, ASU opened its home schedule of conference games with a commanding victory. Peery’s successful first start was aided by a clean outing from the ASU bullpen, which combined for two and a third innings of scoreless work. The spotless Sun Devil pitching from Peery, redshirt freshman Christian Bodlovich and freshman Joe Hauser gave Arizona State its third shutout of the 2021 season.
“(Peery)’s a competitive kid, and we’ve talked about having to do things a little differently, than we had planned at the beginning of the season,” Smith said, “but Brock has shown that if he’s in the strike zone, he’s pretty tough to hit. We just wanted to give them a different look… but you couldn’t script it any better.”
One of the challenges throughout this season for ASU has been its ability to maintain great plate appearances for the entirety of a game. Smith said Friday night was a great example of what he wants to see from his lineup on an inning to inning basis.
“Every game is different, and every pitcher is different,” said Smith, whose Sun Devil squad scored in five of the first six innings Friday, scoring multiple runs in three of those frames. “I don’t think that (the performance against Oregon last weekend) was an indication that we were off. Other teams give scholarships, too. I thought we competed last weekend just like we did tonight.
“That’s growth. That’s what you want to see from a young team. Don’t be caught up in the score, don’t be caught up in the result. Just keep grinding out good at-bats whether you’re up or down.”
Arizona State’s offense tacked on offensive insurance later in the contest in a variety of ways. On a night where the Sun Devils stole four bases – something Smith mentioned postgame as a positive sign – ASU manufactured offense in a variety of ways. In the fifth inning, ASU scored two runs despite only one ball leaving the infield. In the sixth, a two-run home run from right fielder Kai Murphy gave the Sun Devils a 10-0 lead.
“I was ready for first-pitch fastball,” explained Murphy of his third home run of the season. “I had seen a lot of fastballs all night, so I was ready for one.”
The commanding victory for Arizona State evens its Pac-12 record at 2-2, improving their overall mark to 13-5. Varying approaches to the pitching staff will continue to be a theme of this Sun Devil season, but performances like Peery’s give Smith hope.
“We’ve been hit a little bit with some unfortunate injuries,” Smith said after the Sun Devils opened their first home series of Pac-12 play with a win. “But what that does is it creates opportunities for other guys.”
