Willie Bloomquist sat down for his postgame press conference with a coy smile. He exhaled in relief, having just watched his team hang on for a wild back and forth 14-12 win over USC in Thursday night’s series opener.
“One of those games,” Bloomquist said. “Back and forth, and you’re just trying to put up a zero, and they just keep coming back. Better to win ugly than to lose pretty.”
And win ugly they did.
The box score in this game resembles a golf scorecard, with runs scored in all nine innings and neither team posting consecutive scoreless frames on defense. After taking a first-inning four-run lead, Arizona State (16-19) kept a pesky USC squad at bay for the rest of the evening, never trailing while never leading by more than four runs. Their total of 14 marked the third game in a row the Sun Devils have scored double-digit runs.
“It’s about staying consistent and not getting too high or low,” freshman Will Rogers said. “It’s easier to hit when everybody else is; the guys ahead of you are setting the table, it’s a great feeling.”
It was a big day for Rogers, whose fourth-inning solo home run wasn’t his best play of the night. It wasn’t even good enough for second place. Rogers’ biggest impact on Thursday came in left field, where the catcher by trade turned corner outfielder made big plays with both his glove and his arm. In the second inning, he gunned down a USC baserunner trying to stretch a leadoff double into a triple at third base. Two innings later, he tracked a deep fly ball to the track and wall and made a spectacular leaping grab, robbing USC’s Trevor Halsema of at least an extra-base hit.
On opening day just less than two months ago, Rogers looked like a deer in the headlights in left field. With several starts in left now under his belt, he looks like he’s been there his whole life.
“Not bad for a backup catcher, huh?” Bloomquist joked.
Not bad at all. While Rogers looks the part in left, he still believes he has a long way to go.
“I still don’t feel fully comfortable; it’s still a work in progress,“ Rogers said. “Coach Buck has taught me everything about outfield, I knew nothing coming here, and he’s just been unbelievable.”
Two other Sun Devils circled the bags on Thursday night. In the bottom of the first, with ASU already leading 1-0, Nate Baez crushed a hanging curveball from USC starter Isaac Esqueda out to left for his third long ball of the year. In the sixth, “Oppo Ethan” made an appearance as Ethan Long launched a towering blast to dead right field for a three-run shot.
Long’s tiebreaking homer gave Arizona State a 10-7 lead. Although it got dicey a number of times in the late innings, this lead wouldn’t be relinquished. The Trojans scored two in the seventh to make it a one-run game, but Blake Pivaroff escaped a jam. After ASU tacked on four runs in the home half of the seventh, Brock Peery replaced Pivaroff during a tumultuous top of the eighth. Of course, most half innings were tumultuous for both sides, but the early season bullpen hiccups for ASU were fresh on the minds of everyone at the ballpark Thursday night. Especially given the way USC’s Tyler Lozano swung the bat. Lozano went yard three times Thursday night, driving in six runs. In the top of the eighth, Bloomquist put him on first base with an intentional walk.
After missing his regularly scheduled start last weekend at Stanford, right-hander Tyler Meyer got back on the mound for the series opener Thursday. His start was a bit of a rollercoaster, with his final line indicating an outing worse than Meyer’s seemed to be. He went 5.1 innings, allowing six earned runs and striking out four. His velocity was a tick down, with the fastball hovering around 89-90 mph instead of his usual 91-93.
Meyer struggled with command in the second inning and surrendered Lozano’s first homer of the night, a three-run shot that nearly erased ASU’s four-run first. There was activity in the Sun Devil bullpen, but Bloomquist elected to stick with one of his most reliable starting pitchers of his inaugural season.
“We figured we wanted him somewhere around that 80-85 pitch mark, he was probably going to be a bit rusty, but I was happy with the way he battled,” Bloomquist said. “It was about right; you could tell he was starting to get a little tired; it was about time for him to turn it over to someone else.”
USC isn’t Arizona, but during Bloomquist’s time as a player at Arizona State, the Trojans were ASU’s most formidable adversary. The personal nature of his attitude when it comes to going up against these teams adds a unique element to a locker room that feeds off the intensity of rivalry games and series.
“Oh yeah, it feels good to beat USC. For me, they’re right up there; I don’t have to say why,” Bloomquist said. He’s referencing the numerous high-powered and competitive games his Sun Devil teams played against the Trojans in the late nineties, specifically the 1998 national championship game, which ASU lost 21-14. “It’s always good to put up a lot of runs against them, last time, we scored 14, and we lost a pretty big game. Whenever we tee it up against SC, there’s a little bit of extra adrenaline.”
Both programs in their current state are a far cry from playing for a national championship, but if there’s been one thing to take away from Bloomquist’s verbiage surrounding rivalry games and playing with pride for the maroon and gold, the passion is certainly there at the top of this program.
