TUCSON, Ariz. - In the first 40 games of his career as head coach, Willie Bloomquist has endured a few losses that have really stung. There was a ninth-inning lead blown against BYU in the second week of the season. A late lead was surrendered in walk-off fashion at UC Irvine in mid-March. Neither of those– or any of the 20 losses ASU has suffered so far this season– have hurt more than Friday night’s 7-6 10 inning loss to Arizona.
“We fell short tonight, and that stings a little bit,” Bloomquist said. “It obviously would have been nice to get this W today, but such is life, and such is this sport. We gotta move on and be ready to go tomorrow.”
Blake Pivaroff relieved Jared Glenn in the eighth and gave up a single that tied the game at six. He tossed a scoreless ninth before getting the first out in the bottom of the 10th. Arizona’s Chase Davis sent everyone home one batter later with a walk-off solo home run. The 414-foot blast cut through the wind, easily clearing the wall in right and sending 5,000+ Arizona fans into a frenzy. ASU stranded two baserunners in both the ninth and tenth innings.
Arizona State trailed 4-0 early before battling all the way back to take a 6-4 lead into the eighth. Two runs off of Jared Glenn tied it for Arizona in that inning, shifting the momentum firmly back to the Wildcats. Glenn had pitched around trouble in the seventh before being sent back out for the eighth.
“It’s a long weekend; we can’t burn through everybody on the first night,” Bloomquist said. “He was throwing the ball well enough. I thought we could squeeze another inning out of him. It didn’t work out that way. It didn’t go our way, but there were a lot of big performances tonight.”
After chasing the Wildcats for the majority of the game, ASU finally took the lead in the seventh in dramatic fashion. With a runner on second and two outs, Conor Davis belted a two-run go-ahead home run to left. He rounded the bases with a purpose, repaying the Wildcat fans who had showered him with boos when he walked up to the plate. The jeers stemmed from a fifth inning argument in which Davis took exception to the path of an Arizona runner during a near collision at first base. Both teams were chippy all night long in game one of the rivalry series.
“That was a special moment with the crowd booing him right there, a big moment in a big rivalry game,” Bloomquist said. “For him to do that, with the crowd the way that they are here, that was a lot of fun for him and a lot of fun for our guys.”
Things could get interesting on Saturday and Sunday, given the obvious tension on the field on Friday night.
“Our guys won’t back down, that I know,” Bloomquist said. “They ain’t dead; I know that much. Our team won’t quit. They wanted this one, of course, but they’ll be ready tomorrow. They won’t back down to anyone.”
Arizona starter TJ Nicholls threw three scoreless innings to start the game, but he wasn’t dominant. ASU totaled five hits in those free frames. In the top of the fourth, they broke through. Unphased by Nicholls’ 97 mph heater, Ethan Long and Conor Davis roped back-to-back doubles to put the Sun Devils on the board.
In the fifth, Nicholls fell apart. He walked three and threw 32 pitches in the inning. ASU was gifted two runs, as Hunter Haas and Joe Lampe scored on wild pitches. The four-run early lead Arizona mounted in the early going seemed to be early indicators of a blowout in the making.
The Arizona State bullpen timeline in 2022 has been a night and day tale. Early season struggles have given way to midseason dominance. It was more of the same lights out stuff from the Sun Devil relievers in the middle innings on Friday night, as Christian Bodlovich and Jared Glenn got through the fifth, sixth, and seven innings without allowing a run. Glenn’s fateful eighth inning and Pivaroff’’s eventual loss are blemishes, but the bullpen as a whole has still been tremendous lately. For the final two games of the series, ASU has a lot of untapped arms ready to go.
“There’s a couple of guys who were a little stiff still, so we were trying to ride Glenn and Pivaroff as long as they’d go,” Bloomquist said. “It saved some bullets for tomorrow, and we’re gonna need them. It’s nice to still have some guys left down there that are capable.”
This season has punched Arizona State in the gut time and time again. Friday’s crushing loss means more for several reasons. Firstly, this coach and this team obviously hate Arizona. Beyond that, the real implications of this series are huge. This would have been ASU’s sixth straight win and a massive RPI booster come selection Monday. A series win can still be that boost, but they’ll obviously have to grab the next two games to make that happen.
Act II is scheduled for Saturday at 5 pm.
