His floppy gear jumping around like an armored Roman solider heading into the eye of battle, catcher Nick Cheema ran forward and high-fived a young fan eagerly jutting his hand over the third-base line railing.

Cheema, who joined No. 22 ASU’s thin roster late in the year, is the team’s third catcher -- or the de facto bullpen catcher, as his role has dwarfed into. That’s where he was running from with Alika Williams at the plate in the bottom of the eighth.

Coach Tracy Smith had phoned down to the bullpen in search of the meagerly-used junior. After all, someone needed to hop behind the plate in the ninth.

The fifth-year skipper had already subbed out designated hitter, and ASU’s second catcher, Lyle Lin for freshman two-way player Erik Tolman. Then in the eighth, with two down, trailing by one, Smith took Ferri off first base as Boyd Vander Kooi, the Devils’ lengthy 6-foot-5, 220-pound Saturday starter, threw on a clunky helmet and hopped on to the field as Ferri’s pinch runner.

Smith has jumped to the all-hands-on-deck philosophy before, normally with his scarce bullpen instead of ASU’s loaded offense. As the innings dwindled, however, in Friday’s 3-2 loss to No. 1 UCLA (36-7 15-4 Pac-12), Smith’s operating procedures turned into the Red Cross, abiding by the ‘We’ll be ready in case something happens’ mantra.

Locked in a scrappy contest with the top-ranked Bruins, the lights were turning red on the Sun Devils’ clutch hitting. Plus, with 44 combined home runs from Spencer Torkelson, Hunter Bishop and Trevor Hauver alone, it would nearly take a crystal ball for Smith to turn to small ball.

Friday’s pinch-hit and pinch-running moves were a wager, without selling his soul to bunting and trying to advance runners against the nation’s top-ERA squad, that a hit was going to come through.

Though it didn’t, Smith was forecasting his lineup just in case.

“We had Sam (on first) and you kind of let that inning, see if Hauver, with one out, hits a gaper. You still have a runner on third with one out,” Smith said. “You move the baseball, you score. But when you get it down to two, we’d be kicking ourselves if someone pops a double there and Sam doesn’t score.”

The Sun Devils were chasing a run. If that meant taking out another catcher, then so be it.

Heck, Smith mentioned that he pulled Lin for Tolman at DH, despite the fact that Lin was 3-for-3, because Lin is one of the slowest guys on the team, a possible liability running the bases late in the game.

“The defensive stuff is secondary,” Smith said of pulling Ferri down a run. “We just didn’t get a hit.”

As seems to always be the case against the No. 1 team, little things seem to augment.

“They do,” starter Alec Marsh said. “You almost try to be perfect.”

For the circumstances, Marsh nearly was. He gave up just three runs on 10 hits in 7 ⅓ innings, but this game was weird. There were just two extra-base hits from both teams, a dink-and-dunk game that better suits the Bruins.

“I thought their whole team was a bunch of scrappy two(-hole) hitters,” Marsh said. “They take advantage of everything and they don’t make mistakes. That’s why you have to be even better on the upside.”

Down a run in the ninth, Bishop drew a lead-off walk against UCLA’s stud righty, Holden Powell, leaving Tolman, who Smith replaced Lin with, Gage Workman and Carter Aldrete due up. No point in bunting, Smith thought, because Powell’s breaking ball moves inside to lefties Tolman and Workman, pulling a ground ball is as good, if not better, than a bunt.

“I honestly felt pretty good getting the lead-off guy on with the lefties we had coming up,” Smith said. “Just couldn’t move the baseball.”

Both Tolman and Workman struck out looking.

As he did after a loss two weeks ago to Utah, Smith shook some hands and bolted straight for the clubhouse to look a questionable call. His gripe Friday, in large part, revolved around Workman’s called third strike, which video replays showed missed the outside.

Earlier in the night, Marsh, and the 3,878 at Phoenix Municipal Stadium echoed their objections to a number of questionable balls and strikes calls toward home plate. Smith aired more of his grievances postgame after he’s gotten his hands on the video.

“I’m sick and tired and going back and looking at stuff postgame and them being the beneficiaries of strikes and we aren’t,” Smith said. “What am I going to say to (Workman), ‘Hey man, you’re doing what we teach you to do: don’t swing at balls.

“When you’re in a game like that it’s going to happen. Umpires are human. It just seems like they’re a little bit human more on the other side right now, at least they were tonight.”