The Sun Devils (21-11, 8-4 Big 12) remained one game back of first in the Big 12 standings with the victory behind a Herculean effort out of the bullpen from Cole Carlon who retired all 13 batters he faced in order while the bats came alive to the tune of 14 hits and eight unanswered runs in the second half of the game.
Carlon was quite literally unhittable in his 4.1 innings out of the pen as he struck out 10 of the 13 batters he faced, including seven in a row at one point – tied for the fourth-most consecutive strikeouts by a Sun Devil pitcher in program history.
He became the third Sun Devil pitcher to record double digit strikeouts this weekend as the staff finished with 45 total strikeouts – its most in a series since it had 46 against Southern Utah in 2001.
Matt King went 3-for-3 on the offensive side as he broke the Sun Devils out of their offensive lull in the fifth inning with his two run shot to get ASU on the board at 4-2 – his first homer of the year. ASU would erupt for four more runs in the sixth to take its first lead of the game and held on from there.
Jacob Tobias and Landon Hairston each added multiple hits and Isaiah Jackson had the go-ahead knock in the sixth with his two-RBI single.
ASU will host a midweek contest against CSUN this Tuesday with an early first pitch scheduled for 1 p.m. AZT before heading on the road for four straight games starting with a Big 12 weekend series at Cincinnati beginning Friday and a Monday non-conference tilt at Purdue after that.
TURNING POINT
After a huge two-run home run from Matt King in the bottom of the fourth, his first of the season, the Sun Devil batters went to work in the bottom of the sixth. Nine batters came to the plate for ASU, and four came around to score. With the bases loaded, King was hit by a pitch, bringing in one run. The big hit then came from Isaiah Jackson, who singled to right center, driving in two runs and giving the Devils their first lead of the game.
FINAL STRAW
After ASU tacked on two runs in the bottom of the eighth, Lucas Kelly took the ball for the ninth. Kelly inherited a now four-run advantage and didn’t allow the Wildcats back in it as he picked up a pair of strikeouts to put the exclamation mark on Sunday evening’s contest.
INNING BY INNING
First Inning
Jaden Alba took the mound for the Sun Devils, posting a scoreless first inning, the first of the weekend. Arizona took a one-out walk, but the runner did not come around to score, as back-to-back groundouts, including a comebacker off of Alba, closed out the frame.
After Kyle Walker led off with a flyout to left, Landon Hairston reached on a base hit to left field. However, Nu’u Contrades grounded into a double play, ending the inning.
Second Inning
Alba returned to action and suffered a leadoff single. He then responded by recording three straight punchouts to work around the leadoff knock and hang a zero for the frame.
Jacob Tobias led things off with a base knock up the middle, but the Sun Devils’ Achilles heel struck again, as Brandon Compton lined into a double play. Matt King added a base hit of his own, but Isaiah Jacksongrounded out to wrap up the second.
Third Inning
The Devils posted another scoreless inning, as Alba struck out the first two batters before issuing a walk. A balk moved the runner over to second, but Alba was able to get the next batter to fly out to center.
The Sun Devils couldn’t get anything going on the basepaths, as the only baserunner came on Kyle Walker’s two-out walk. Walker was then caught stealing to end the inning.
Fourth Inning
The Wildcats struck first, as four-straight hits included three extra base hits and a three-run home run to give them the 4-0 advantage. Alba then picked up a pair of groundouts before allowing a walk in an eight-pitch battle. The walk would be the final batter Alba faced as Cole Carlon took the ball in relief. Carlon worked a quick strikeout to prevent any further damage.
Landon Hairston had a leadoff opposite field single to begin the fourth. The double play remained the Sun Devils’ kryptonite as Nu’u Contrades rolled into a 6-4-3 double play before Jacob Tobias went down on strikes.
Fifth Inning
Carlon returned to the mound for his second inning of work, pitching a 1-2-3 fifth, punctuated with two strikeouts.
Compton led off the inning with a double off the left field wall, and King followed it up with a two-run home run to left center field, cutting the deficit to 4-2. Back-to-back strikeouts followed before Brody Briggs singled into right field. Walker then grounded out to the pitcher to close out the inning.
Sixth Inning
Carlon remained dialed in on the mound, striking out the side to pick up his sixth punch out through 2.1 innings of work.
A leadoff walk of Hairston followed by a Contrades single set the table for a potential big inning. A walk of Compton loaded the bases, where King drew a HBP to plate a run and make it 4-3. With the bases still loaded, Jackson ripped a two-run single to give the Devils the 5-4 advantage. A little help from the Wildcats resulted in a Brody Briggs double that plated another run, bringing things to 6-4.
Seventh Inning
Carlon continued dominating on the mound, collecting two more strikeouts and pitching another scoreless frame.
Tobias doubled with two-outs, getting into scoring position, but a groundout from Compton ended the inning with the ASU still holding on to a two-run lead.
Eighth Inning
Carlon toed the rubber yet again, remaining the storyline of the contest with another perfect inning. The lefty picked up another two strikeouts to bring his total to a career-high 10, and more importantly a zero on the board for Arizona.
The Sun Devils added some much needed insurance runs as Kien Vu brought home King to make it 7-4. Briggs followed suit with a perfectly executed bunt that scored Jackson on an Arizona throwing error. The Devils went on top 8-4 after eight innings of play.
Ninth Inning
Lucas Kelly took the mound for the Sun Devils, looking to close out the win for the Sun Devils. He did just that, working around two singles to put up a scoreless inning and preserve the 8-4 win for Arizona State.
QUOTABLES
Head Coach Willie Bloomquist
Opening Statement
“It was big on our guys to come back. Last couple of days have been kind of rock bottom. You don’t like losing games at home, especially to those guys. To get down 4-0 today and not show a whole lot of signs of offense, but to be able to come back and steal one there and fight the last half of that game and come back go away with the win. Hopefully we can use that momentum as a huge positive moving forward.”
On Cole Carlon’s dominant performance
“Kid was electric tonight. That’s the best I’ve ever seen him. He faced 13 hitters, punched out 10. That was impressive by him. We went a little bit longer than we wanted to. We stretched him out one more inning, but the kid was rolling. I didn’t want to take him out. He was throwing the heck out of it. Everything was working well. Pitches were tunneling great, had some fizz on it when it was coming out too, which was good to see. He had it all working tonight.”
On much improved offensive performance
“I think just more defined on what we’re trying to do and staying with it, even if we got runners on. I mean, to me, that was the whole series. It seemed like anytime they got a runner on, they came up with a big hit and drove them in. Every time we got a runner on we hit into a double play or demolished any type of rally and finally in the 5th and 6th there today we were able to break through and get some hits with guys in scoring position and hits with guys on base and string something together. (I) made the comment yesterday that our hits were meaningless. It’s like they were one hit wonders and then that was it. Everybody got a hit except for a couple of guys. But today we’re able to stack them on top of each other and create a rally. It seemed like on the flip side every time those guys got a guy on, they strung 2 or 3 hits together and scored and that was the frustrating part on our end. But yeah, much better offensive approach.”
On how the team can build off the win heading into the back-half of the season
“Great experience, minus obviously you lose the series, which we don’t want to talk about that too much. But, the atmosphere at Muni this weekend was unbelievable. The fans showed up, so thank you to the fans for coming out. It was just huge. Today was on national television, so everyone got to see a pretty packed house here at Muni, a great game. Those are the positives you take away from it. You try to look at Friday and Saturday night as tough as they were to swallow, those expose some things that we have to get better at. And if we want to make a run at this thing, we have to get better at those types of things. When you play better teams, those things get exposed and we have to address those rather than going along the rest of the season thinking everything’s great and hunky dory. If you’re lucky enough to get to the postseason, those things get exposed too late. Now we can address them. We took yesterday as kind of our low point. I didn’t sleep a whole lot the last couple of nights. But to bounce back the way we did today and hopefully we can use that momentum as something to build upon as we continue the rest of our season. We’re going to have some tough weekends and tough weeks ahead of us, but hopefully this is the kick start to something special going forward branching off on that.”
Press Release courtesy of Sun Devil Athletics – Jeremy Hawkes
Click on Logo
