If there's one player who's mastered the art of agitating ASU baseball fans in recent years, it's Arizona's Bobby Dalbec.
The sophomore third baseman and closer was slotted into a starting pitching role for the final game of the series after the Wildcats (23-11, 8-7) realigned their rotation to attempt to establish some consistency to a staff with a 4.21 combined ERA.
And for four solid innings Monday night, the right-handed Dalbec provided that, and then some – by the time he departed with one out in the fifth, he'd held the Sun Devils (23-10,11-4 Pac-12) scoreless on just five hits.
If it seemed like an occurrence of déjà vu when Dalbec (4-for-9, 4 RBIs) homered in the second inning to give Arizona a 1-0 lead, that’s because it practically was.
In the last game the Wildcats played at Packard Stadium in 2014, Dalbec was instrumental in Arizona’s 10-9 victory as a reliever and went 5-for-18 with 4 RBIs in the season against ASU.
Facing junior left-hander Brett Lilek, Dalbec worked a full count and drove the ball over the right field fence.
Even though Dalbec's two consecutive one-out walks left Nathan Bannister to inherit a bases-loaded jam, the junior right-hander got swinging strikeouts facing the dangerous middle of ASU's order in senior left fielder Jake Peevyhouse and sophomore shortstop Colby Woodmansee to end the inning.
He remained in the game as a designated hitter and walked and struck out his next two appearances.
ASU tied the game in the sixth after sophomore catcher Brian Serven’s leadoff double and senior first baseman Joey Bielek hit a sacrifice fly to center field to bring him home.
If not for a four-pitch walk to Serven in the seventh with the bases loaded, ASU would not have led once, but briefly held a 2-1 advantage that appeared to bring with it a significant momentum shift.
But as has been the case several times this season, the Sun Devils performed abysmally with runners on base (1-for-13), particularly with runners in scoring position (0-for-6) and couldn’t muster a clutch hit with two outs (2-for-11).
“To summarize that in a statement, that’s baseball,” ASU coach Tracy Smith said. “Woulda-shoulda-coulda is something you can do after every baseball game. It’s a bad loss, it’s a tough loss, and that’s going to happen in this game.”
With one out and a runner on and junior closer Ryan Burr on the mound in the ninth, Dalbec crushed a 2-2 slider (which Burr said he hung) that easily cleared the retired number signs atop the wall in left center.
“Dalbec’s a good hitter and he did what he was supposed to do with that pitch,” Burr said. “Losing sucks, it is what it is, but we’re still in the hunt for first place. In a couple weeks we’ll take on UCLA and see where we’re at.”
The wheels quickly fell off once Arizona took a 3-2 lead, tacking on four more runs to add insult to injury as fans poured out of Phoenix Muni and the Wildcats avoided a series sweep.
“Sure, we would have loved to have had the sweep,” Smith said. “We just won another Pac-12 series, so if that’s bad, I’m sorry. We’ll keep plugging and moving forward, and that’s all we can do.”
Reach the reporter at smodrich@asu.edu or follow @StefanJModrich on Twitter.
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