In the first midweek matchup for Arizona State (3-1), bases were occupied by No. 24 Kansas State continuously. Should a well-placed ball fall in the outfield grass or a sharply hit ground ball sneak past a diving Sun Devil infielder, head coach Willie Bloomquist would not have walked off the field with a joyous smirk.
“We surpassed our walk total from the whole weekend in one game,” Bloomquist said. “We got lucky. That usually comes back to bite you. But we found a way to still get the win, which is rather impressive given the circumstances.”
Sun Devil arms handed out 12 free passes Tuesday night but mustered a 9-6 midweek victory over a team on the bubble to make the NCAA Tournament at the end of last season.
After the opening weekend series, which featured only nine walks across three games against Santa Clara, the ASU bullpen showed cracks but didn’t break.
A combination of speeds, arm actions, and tempos came jogging in from the right-field bullpen at Phoenix Municipal Stadium to mend together the remaining six innings. ASU’s starter, freshman right-handed pitcher Adam Behrens, went four innings and gave up three runs on five hits with one walk and four strikeouts.
Five relievers pitched 20 total pitches or fewer, and many outings collected one or two outs at a time. Some struggled to induce weak contact and simply fill up the zone. In all, Arizona State used eight pitchers in the contest, four of them freshmen.
“These guys are young, inexperienced still,” Bloomquist said. “But the expectations are way higher than that.”
Kansas State’s timely hitting fell short in the worst of times for the Wildcats. Kansas State stranded 11 runners, went 1-8 with runners in scoring position, and was 0-3 with the bases loaded. When KSU needed a run pushed across, the Sun Devils leaned on some of their more experienced arms to snuff the threats.
“At the end of the day, good teams pick each other up when they need to be picked up,” Bloomquist said.
It was the upperclassmen, two junior-college transfers, and a redshirt senior who did their jobs out of the bullpen and collected outs when needed.
Junior right-handed pitcher Ryan Schiefer, a Central Arizona College transfer, threw one and one-third innings and pitched out of a bases-loaded situation in the top of the fifth inning to keep the game tied. When recruiting him to Arizona State, Bloomquist and assistant head coach Anthony Gilich envisioned the strides he could make as they trusted his arm and demeanor.
Just two innings later, Pima Community College transfer junior left-handed pitcher Matt Cornelius flipped across a slider to earn the final out with the bases loaded and again kept the game tied. Bloomquist liked Cornelius’ mentality coming in as a transfer and trusted his gut in rolling out Cornelius in pressure situations.
“It’s a big moment for sure,” Schiefer said. “But you’ve got to simplify it; it’s really not that complicated. You’ve got a job to do, so rise to the occasion. Get the job done.”
After ASU took the lead in the seventh inning from a single grounded through the right side for sophomore Isaiah Jackson’s 12th and 13th RBIs in his 19th at-bat, experience proved valuable again for Arizona State in the late innings.
With the bases loaded for the third time in the game, Kansas State looked for a base hit to make things interesting down by three runs in the ninth. With a 2-0 count, Bloomquist called upon his back-end, adrenaline-seeking righty to end the game.
“Coming in with a 2-0 count and the sacks juiced, go-ahead run, I just told him, ‘You’re the one guy that can handle this situation, so go get ’em,'” Bloomquist said. “And he didn’t disappoint.”
The big right-hander pumped his fastball, then his fist, as the Sun Devil dugout poured onto the field in relief after redshirt senior right-handed pitcher Matt Tieding climbed back to earn a swinging strike three.
“Moments like that are always so fun,” Tieding said. “Coming in with the chance to save the game for the team is always a blast.”
The mentality of the experienced bullpen arms seems to be clear; embrace the moment and execute.
“That’s why you play baseball, right?” Tieding said. “It’s for moments like that. It wasn’t about calming the pressure for me at all. It was about embracing it, just having fun in it.”
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