(Tucson, AZ) Sun Devil Baseball simply ran out of horses in the stable after a tense Territorial Cup Series at rival Arizona, falling 14-4 in the series finale on Sunday in Tucson.
ASU extended its streak of games with at least double digit hits to 10 straight games and 16 of the last 17. However, the Sun Devils only had four runs to show for 11 hits while the Wildcats managed 14 with the same amount.
Nate Baez recorded a three-run homer in the sixth inning to halve a 6-0 Arizona lead and get the Sun Devils back into it. But a disastrous seventh inning featured numerous walks, wild pitches, hit batters and errors to allow the Wildcats to score seven runs despite having just two hits to put the game out of reach.
Baez finished 2-for-4 with a homer and double – his Pac-12 leading 19th of the season. Ryan Campos also added two hits and nine Sun Devils got a knock but the team was simply unable to make headway on two hefty Arizona leads.
TURNING POINT – The Sun Devils found themselves in a deep early hole after a tough third inning in which Arizona managed three two-out runs in a four-run frame to take a commanding 6-0 lead.
THE BIG MOMENT – Nate Baez launched a two-out, three-run homer in the top of the sixth to cut the Wildcat lead and half and make it 6-3. It seemed like there was light once again for Arizona State, but the Cats responded by adding another run in the bottom of the sixth inning with two outs thanks to a high fly ball that was simply misjudged in left field and dropped for an RBI double. The Devils were never able to come back from the deficit, as it seemed like that extra run the Wildcats put on the board killed the momentum for ASU.
THE FINAL STRAW – The Wildcats doubled their lead in the seventh inning. What was once a 7-3 ballgame, turned into a 14-3 ballgame by the end of the seventh inning. The ASU pitching staff struggled mightily with command, allowing Arizona to score seven runs despite recording only two hits and it took four pitching changes in the frame simply to record three outs.
NOTABLES
Joe Lampe and Ryan Campos extended their active team hitting streaks to 10 games.
Campos recorded two hits in the effort to give him multiple hits in seven of the ten games in his streak.
Campos did nothing to hurt his team-leading batting average in Pac-12 games, increasing it on the weekend to .391 – nearly 40 points higher than any of his teammates.
Nate Baez’s leadoff double in the fifth was his Pac-12 leading 19th of the season – good for top ten in the nation.
His three-run homer was his fourth homer of the season, two of which have been grand slams and two have been three run shots for 14 RBIs on the four long balls.
It also came with two outs to extend his team-leading total of two-out RBIs to 19 – notable as he has 30 on the season.
ASU recorded double-digit hits for the 10th-straight game and 16th time in the last 17 games.
Press Release courtesy of Sun Devil Athletics
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