ASU baseball played two games on Friday, two innings on Saturday and had a time limit on its Sunday game. It was just that kind of weekend.
The Sun Devils (3-0) got the sweep, but their series with Northwestern (0-3) was filled with unexpected turns.
“Weird is definitely one way to characterize it,” said sophomore pitcher James Ryan.
The weekend started with a double-header on Friday to account for expected rain on Saturday — sure enough, Saturday’s game was postponed in the third inning.
In game one on Friday, the Sun Devils had a shutout going before senior closer Eder Erives loaded the bases in the ninth. Head coach Tracy Smith went to his second closer, freshman Chaz Montoya who allowed one of those inherited runners to score.
ASU won 3-1, but Smith said later that he was hoping to have Montoya ready for game two before he was forced to use him in game one.
It never mattered.
The second game of the double-header was all Northwestern’s before the Sun Devils made a ninth-inning comeback and walked off. Even in that win, ASU committed five errors.
Smith said third-baseman Andrew Snow’s three errors in that game led to his decision to hold him out of the starting lineup on Sunday.
“Well,” Smith said, pausing for some time. “I mean, pitching and defense wins games. (Snow's) got to understand, we’ve got to play defense. He’s a good player. The challenge of that is he’s one of our better offensive guys. When you go back and play it out, as many runs as he produced, defensively, we let in.”
Northwestern and ASU tried to play Saturday’s game, which would have been the series finale. Instead, the game was postponed with one out and a runner on first in the top of the third inning, which also meant freshman starting pitcher Spencer Van Scoyoc’s first NCAA start was cut short.
Play resumed on Sunday, but not until the original 12:30 p.m. start time was pushed back for more than two hours.
Smith went with freshman Zane Strand to continue the pitching duties for ASU, but his debut was cut short also. After facing just three batters and throwing 10 pitches, he left with an apparent injury.
“He felt something in his elbow,” Smith said of Strand. “He didn’t say anything to anybody. He tried to go out there the next inning and the velocity was down. We’ll know more after we fully examine him Monday.”
After facing three hitters, Zane Strand's NCAA debut is over. Seems that it's injury-related.
— Matt J. Layman (@mattjlayman) February 19, 2017
Reagan Todd comes in.
T4: 2-1 ASU.
Sophomore southpaw Reagan Todd took over, and was lights-out. Through three innings, Todd allowed just two hits and no walks, striking out five.
“I was able to get my curveball over for a strike,” Todd said. “I think one thing that we realized is that Northwestern was taking a lot of off-speed pitches. If you’re able to throw them for a strike, it gets you ahead in the count.”
After Todd, Ryan pitched three more frames, all hitless, walking none and striking out one. The right-hander finished the game and earned the win — all under the pressure of a 4:45 stop time, as Northwestern had a plane to catch at 7 p.m.
The Sun Devils also had a positive start from freshman catcher and first-baseman Lyle Lin who, in his first three NCAA games this weekend, went 7-for-13 (.538) with two doubles and three RBI.
2-2 this game and 6-11 overall. Were you surprised?@lin_lyle singles to LF to plate Canning.#Devils lead 2-1.https://t.co/IWbaX0IYY2
— Sun Devil Baseball (@ASU_Baseball) February 19, 2017
It wasn’t the smoothest weekend for the Sun Devils, but they got the sweep.
“You’ve got to go home and get your sleep,” Smith said when asked about the final two-day game. “It cuts into your Netflix time a little bit. I was kind of looking forward to kicking back and getting it all over with and having a day off.”
Reach the reporter at matthew.layman@asu.edu or follow @Mattjlayman on Twitter.
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