While Arizona State baseball has been used to high-powered offense, it found itself in a defensive showdown early against Stanford to start off the Pac-12 tournament on Tuesday morning.
While runners got on base, senior lefty Connor Markl and freshman righty Christian Lim kept the game scoreless for the opening hour.
Or at least that was the case until the fourth inning.
The Cardinal (21-32, 12-19 Pac-12) laid on eight runs in that frame. While they did not score the rest of the game, it was enough for them to beat the Sun Devils (32-25, 17-14 Pac-12) 8-7 at Scottsdale Stadium.
The loss put a massive dent in ASU’s NCAA Tournament chances, which hinged on a deep Pac-12 Tournament run given the Sun Devils’ up-and-down season.
“I wasn’t overly concerned about the offense,” ASU head coach Willie Bloomquist said. “They put up seven runs. That should win us a game like that. But we didn’t help out defensively today.”
The Cardinal, holding the eighth seed in the conference, broke the deadlock when sophomore catcher Malcolm Moore sent a solo home run into the right-center field bullpen. Stanford added two more from throwing errors toward home plate.
So, Bloomquist pulled Markl, who finished his day with 3.1 innings pitched, allowing six hits and five earned runs while striking out two batters.
In turn, he brought on redshirt junior pitcher Jonah Giblin. While he pitched four innings, allowing only two runs and striking out four, his efforts in the fourth did not stop the bleeding.
The next batter, sophomore infielder Jimmy Nati, doubled the Cardinal’s advantage with a bases-clearing three-run double. Then, Moore added his second home run of the inning to make the score 8-0 underdogs.
“He threw the ball fine, it’s just we didn’t get much of an opportunity behind him,” Bloomquist said about Markl. “We made a couple of costly defensive miscues.”
But Bloomquist’s side started to chip away at the lead. Junior infielder Jacob Tobias got the Maroon and Gold on the board with a sac fly in the bottom of the fourth before walking with the bases loaded in the fifth.
Graduate infielder Eamonn Lance hit the Sun Devils’ only home run of the day in the sixth. The pinch hitter’s two-run homer doubled his team’s total in the sixth.
“(I) was ready for a heater,” Lance said. “Now that I’ve done it a few times, it’s got a little bit easier, and I’m mentally prepping for that. I’m envisioning success, getting my breathing going. Just ready for it, got it, and it worked out.”
ASU had opportunities to score more with two outs, and instead left the bases loaded. It happened in the fifth inning when Pac-12 Freshman of the Year Brandon Compton struck out and in the seventh when senior infielder Steven Ondina lined to second on the first pitch.
While the Maroon and Gold continued to rally with three runs in the ninth, it could not equalize the game. With the tying run 90 feet away, sophomore outfielder Kien Vu flew out to left field, as the Stanford faithful breathed a sigh of relief.
Nonetheless, Bloomquist was happy with the effort from his team to make the game competitive.
“I’m extremely proud of the guys’ willingness to continue fighting until the end,” he said. “At this point, we gotta control what we can control.”
After Lim allowed two hits and two runs in 4.2 innings pitched, Stanford head coach David Esquer used four relievers to stave off ASU. Sophomore righty Nick Dugan notched the save.
It was a tale of two sides offensively, as the Cardinal outhit the Sun Devils 12-6. But the Maroon and Gold had 13 walks while the Cardinal had three. Despite the free chances, Bloomquist’s side left 13 players on base.
ASU returns to action on Thursday at 10 a.m. MST against the No. 2 seed and No. 6 nationally ranked Oregon State. Seeding plays a role in qualification for the semifinals. So, the Sun Devils will need some help from other teams along with a Thursday victory to qualify for the next round.
“We’re still a very capable team,” Bloomquist said. “You never know what’s gonna happen. It’s all about control. It’s about playing well on Thursday against Oregon State. We’ll see where we go from there.”
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