ASU makes makes statement with win over Oregon State in Pac-12 Tournament
SCOTTSDALE — Nick McLain isn't a fan of mornings. Most college students are not. But Arizona State baseball coach Willie Bloomquist wanted to send a message to his team and the best way to do that was call for an early morning practice.
It appears to have helped as the Sun Devils registered a 14-10 win over Oregon State in Pac-12 tournament baseball pool play at Scottsdale Stadium Thursday morning.
Bloomquist was not thrilled by his team's showing in Tuesday's tournament opener against rival Arizona, a game it lost 12-3. And it really wasn't that close. And the Sun Devils (32-23) should be playing with a sense of urgency as a team on the bubble for an NCAA postseason bid.
"It wasn't a grueling practice. It was more of a, `You got to get your stuff together here,' The fact that it's 7 a.m., and these are 18, 19-year old kids, that's enough in itself to get their attention," Bloomquist said. "At this stage in the game I'm not going to run them into the ground, being this late in the season. You better believe earlier in the season I would have but they realize the disappointment that does for the program when you come out and lay an egg like that, play poorly against Arizona. That's just not acceptable. They need to be reminded of that."
The Sun Devils did indeed do better, particularly at the plate. After managing just three runs and nine hits against the Wildcats, ASU racked up 20 hits off six Beaver pitchers.
Third baseman Nu'u Contrades led the offensive barrage, going 5-for-6 with three RBI, two runs scored and a stolen base. McLain went 3-for-6 with a double, two triples, two RBI and three runs scored. Second baseman Luke Keaschall went 4-for-6 with four RBI, highlighted by a two-run home run in the seventh.
"I wasn't a fan of it. I'm not a morning person," McLain said of the early wake-up call. "The message was put across, we needed to win today. We had a good practice as a team and got it done today."
In most projections ASU was pegged as one of the last few teams in the postseason field. That's not a scenario unfamiliar to ASU sports faithful. The men's basketball team faced the same situation down the stretch of its season, eventually making it in and even winning a game.
The victory against the second-seeded Oregon State (39-18) is also one that will resonate favorably with the Beavers ranked nationally in multiple polls. ASU also won two of three games against the Beavers in the regular season, dropping the opener 13-11 and then winning the next two 11-7 and 12-10.
So the slugfest against Oregon State followed the pattern of the previous games.
But ever the perfectionist, Bloomquist was far from happy. The four ASU pitchers gave up a collective 13 hits, and most problematic were the seven walks and a hit batter.
There were also three fielding errors and two passed balls.
After ASU went up 6-1, the Beavers got four in the fifth, with Khristian Curtis walking the bases loaded.
The Sun Devils went into the late innings up 14-5, only to give up two in the bottom of the eighth and three in the ninth, making the lead tenuous at best. So Bloomquist was not entirely happy.
"It always seem to be a this or that with us," he said. " If we can put it all together we have a chance to be pretty good. We gotta play a full nine innings and we let that team back into it and it became a lot closer than it needed to be. At the end of the day we got enough done to get a W, see what happens from here on out."
The win went to Blake Pivaroff (3-2), the third pitcher. Timmy Manning was the ASU starter and he held his own, giving up one run and two hits while striking out six in three innings.
"We have to be better than that. If we want to be a team that is taken seriously. We got to finish the job and be better than that. I think they know that, just let the foot off the gas and lost focus. If you want to be good you've got to remain focused the full nine. Enough to get he job done today but it wasn't pretty," Bloomquist said.
ASU finished off the contest, not knowing if it would advance to play on Friday. It needed a USC win over Washington and a Stanford win over Oregon to advance to the semifinals. Bloomquist was not sticking around though, with his daughter's graduation later.
But Washington turned back USC 8-3, meaning ASU's appearance in the Pac-12 tournament was indeed over.
"Oregon State is a top 25 (team) that looks pretty dang good so and we beat them three of four this year which is a good resume builder for us and we've done everything we can do to this point. "
ASU also played without outfielder Wyatt Crenshaw who was ejected from the game against Arizona. Ryan Campos was moved from catcher to outfield in his spot with Bronson Balholm inserted at catcher. Balholm contributed three hits and knocked in three runs.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona State baseball furthers case for postseason bid with win over Oregon State in Pac-12 tournament
