In college baseball, Wednesday afternoon games are an oddity, especially for Arizona State (3-6), which has just two middle of the week matchups across the entire regular season. However, in their first ballgame display on a Wednesday in 2022, Arizona State succumbed to a much more familiar fate, as inconsistent offense and a poor bullpen performance left Arizona State in the wake of No. 4 Oklahoma State, falling to the Cowboys 11-6 at Phoenix Municipal Stadium.
The contest began with a flurry of offense from both sides, with OSU cashing in first. Freshman leadoff Zach Ehrhard logged the first hit of the game with a single to right and advanced all the way to third via a single from sophomore infielder Nolan McLean. Next came the big bat of sophomore outfielder Caeden Trenkle, who uncorked a pitch over the centerfield wall, putting three runs on the board early for the Cowboys.
Arizona State would respond with a leadoff single of its own via the bat of freshman second baseman Alex Champagne, who then advanced to second on a balk. Sophomore third baseman Ethan Long then roped a double, just his second of the year, scoring Champagne. Arizona State logged another run on a single up the middle from redshirt sophomore Nate Baez, scoring Long. Sophomore first baseman Blake Pivaroff walked, and redshirt sophomore Kai Murphy reached on an OSU error, scoring Baez. Arizona State would log three more runs over the next three hitters via free passes to first with OSU junior lefty starter Dillon Marsh struggling. Marsh was chased as the fifth ASU run came across home, giving way to junior righty Bayden Root.
Following Root’s entry, ASU would only log six more hits across the duration of the contest, bringing one additional run across in the third after Murphy walked to lead off the inning, and Champagne brought him home with two outs on a single to center. Root threw four and a third on Wednesday, allowing just four hits, and the run in the third while striking out two and issuing one walk to 16 batters faced.
“He came in and had a pretty good slider working; he was tough on us,” ASU manager Willie Bloomquist said of Root. “He kept us off balance and did a nice job of mixing things up… It’s nice to see some flickers of an offense with the guys that aren’t our traditional starters - guys that are getting in there and battling hard.”
With normal middle infield starters redshirt sophomore second baseman Sean McLain and sophomore shortstop Hunter Haas out due to arm stiffness and a torn rotator cuff, respectively, Bloomquist opted to stick with his freshmen young guns - shortstop Cam Magee and Champagne to occupy the space for the second consecutive contest.
Champagne went 3-for-4 on the afternoon, logging singles in the first, third and sixth innings, bringing across two RBI with a strikeout in the eighth. Magee failed to have the same luck, going 0-for-3 with a walk, a pair of flyouts, and a groundout.
“The two freshmen in the middle, they’re playing great, from a standpoint of being thrown into the fire against a pretty dang good team,” Bloomquist said. “They just keep competing. Alex might’ve hurt his thumb on the first play of the game because it was all black and blue, but he didn’t say a word, just kept competing… Those are the kinds of guys we want to wear the Sun Devil uniform.”
Despite a lack of consistent offense, Arizona State’s starting pitching has been a relatively reliable resource for Bloomquist and the Sun Devils. But after three games across Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and just a pair of days off before the Oklahoma State series on Tuesday and Wednesday, the ASU manager had to dip into his bag of tricks in the second game against the Cowboys, and it didn’t go as planned.
Redshirt senior Davidson transfer Jacob Walker started the contest, yielding the three-run shot to Trenkle. Walker would exit after two and two-thirds innings of work, allowing four hits, three runs, a walk, and a pair of strikeouts.
Then ASU’s bullpen woes came into the fray. Redshirt sophomore lefty Danny Marshall took over for two batters, inducing a groundout and a walk. Redshirt sophomore lefty Graham Osman walked four batters in the fourth, closing the ASU lead to two. Redshirt junior righty Luke La Flam closed out the inning before coming back out for the fifth. La Flam hit two out of the first three batters he faced, struck out the other, induced a groundout, and walked the bases loaded. Enter sophomore righty Brock Peery, who gave up a one-run single up the middle on the third pitch of his appearance. Luckily, the play was defused at the plate, throwing out the tying run.
Sophomore righty Jared Glenn entered in the sixth, and the Cowboys took advantage, rattling off a double, single, double, sac fly, single, and walk in rapid succession before a double play ended the suffering. OSU snatched the lead away and never looked back, tacking on four more runs in the seventh off redshirt junior righty Will Levine. The fatal blow was another three-run bomb to center from Trenkle.
“Sometimes (losing leads late in games) becomes more of a mental thing rather than a physical thing,” Bloomquist noted. “I just got through telling them that they have the capability of throwing strikes; it’s just that there’s a disconnect. Guys are looking over their shoulders and thinking they don’t want to be the one that does it. We have to change their frame of mind, their mindset.”
“We are going to try to breed confidence into these guys, and it’s just going to take one. If someone gets it done, hopefully, it will catch like wildfire. We just need one to step up.”
This weekend, Arizona State will play on the road for the first time, a three-game slate against San Diego State (3-6). First pitch on Friday is set for 7:00 p.m. MST in San Diego. Bloomquist hopes the road trip will play into the team’s favor, bonding them away from the friendly confines of Phoenix Municipal Stadium.
“Our first road trip is a chance for us to come together as a team and get away from home,” the ASU skipper said. “Sometimes that can help. If they’re feeling pressures of playing at home, sometimes a change of scenery can be a good thing.”
“I hope that’s a good thing and the case for our guys, understanding that we’re going into somebody else’s environment now and trying to beat them at their place.”
