PHOENIX – Midweek games in college baseball are tricky for a lot of teams. It can be a test for a team’s resilience, especially if they pick up a big series win or a sweep.
It’s also a test of the arms sent out on the mound. With teams saving their best arms for the weekend, games played on Tuesdays or Wednesdays can be tricky to navigate.
For Arizona State (15-5, 2-1 Big 12), it faced that exact situation on Tuesday, going with a bullpen game in its midweek matchup against cross-town rival Grand Canyon (8-14).
The result was positive, as five combined Sun Devils allowed three runs, six hits and two walks. And thanks to a fielding miscue by the Lopes in the 10th inning, ASU walked away with a 4-3 win to extend its win streak to three.
Though it was a bullpen game, Tuesday’s starter was someone who was a weekend starter before the season began: sophomore left-handed pitcher Easton Barrett.
Barrett had appeared in four games before Tuesday, but the start of the year has not been kind to him. He lacked command on the mound and, because of that, ASU coach Willie Bloomquist pulled him as a weekend starter to re-evaluate his role.
On Tuesday, the Springville, Utah native showed signs of encouragement to the Sun Devil faithful. He pitched the first three innings, but he allowed no hits and walked just two batters.
Cutting his walk count down to two should provide a boost to his confidence, as he allowed 13 of them in his first three starts of 2026.
“(He) pounded (the) zone a little bit better,” Bloomquist said. “He did fall behind every once in a while, kind of lost it a little bit and walked a couple of hitters. But even when he got behind in the count, he was able to get back in it, and usually with a breaking ball, which is when you can kind of work from behind in the count and throw breaking balls for strikes to get back in there.”
After Barrett’s night was finished after the third innings, things went south for the Maroon and Gold just a bit. Junior right-handed pitcher Jaden Alba pitched a scoreless fourth but allowed two runs in the inning after to give GCU a 2-0 lead.
Following Alba, it was junior right-handed pitcher Josh Butler’s turn at the hill, and his result was similar to Alba’s outing. He pitched a scoreless sixth but allowed a run in the seventh to give the Lopes their two-run lead back, now leading 3-1.
Coming in with a runner on third and one out was graduate right-handed pitcher Colby Guy. The UNC Asheville transfer had appeared in only four games before Tuesday, mostly in mop-up duty.
But against GCU, it was his chance to show his coach something in a tight game. And he delivered.
Guy went 2 ⅔ innings, allowing only one baserunner on a fielder’s choice and striking out four hitters. He gave ASU some length coming out of the bullpen as its bats began to wake up, in part from a game-tying two-run shot by sophomore catcher Coen Niclai in the seventh inning.
“I gotta start using that guy more. He’s earned more, more valuable innings, and we’re kind of looking for a bridge guy to that back end, and we might have just found it,” Bloomquist said. “So he’s done a great job. Shoot, the way he was throwing it tonight, he might be a guy that could finish some games too.”
“It’s my last year, so (I’m) trying to leave everything out on the field, just being calm out here,” Guy said.
Sophomore right-handed pitcher Finn Edwards went in to pitch the top of the 10th, striking out the side for the final bullpen action for Sparky that night as junior infielder Dominic Smaldino scored on an error in the bottom half of the inning to walk off the Lopes.
After a game where the bullpen used more of its backend pitchers that fans may not be too familiar with yet, they’ll get that familiarity back this weekend as the Sun Devils travel to Manhattan for their first road conference series of the season. Sophomore right-handed pitcher Cole Carlon will be back on the mound, hoping to give his team another series win.
“I got all the faith in the world in our pitchers and in our staff, to put a good game plan together,” fifth-year outfielder Dean Toigo said. “It’s going to be a fun series.”
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