WICHITA, Kan. -- A little resolve can go a long way. Just ask the ASU baseball team.
Trailing No. 10 Wichita State 7-1 after two innings Tuesday, the Sun Devils didn't panic. They just dug deeper, and ASU head coach Pat Murphy had no qualms about turning his pitching staff into a carousel.
The process may not have been pretty, but it worked.
Junior shortstop Dustin Pedroia homered twice, and eight Sun Devils pitchers patched the pieces together, as ASU rallied to beat Wichita State 10-9 before 4,521 at Eck Stadium.
The key hits in the comeback came from junior catcher Tuffy Gosewisch, who ripped a game-tying double down the left field line in the fifth, and then drove home the go-ahead run in the seventh on a fly ball that was bobbled on the warning track.
Sophomore Erik Averill (3-2) pitched two shutout innings to earn the win after freshman Pat Bresnehan put the clamps down for 2.2 innings, starting in the third, when the Sun Devils (29-13) already had burned through four pitchers.
In the bottom of the ninth, freshman closer Zechry Zinicola was far from perfect, although he got the job done, aided by a pickoff at second base. Junior catcher Joe Muich fouled out to first for the second out, and Zinicola fanned senior infielder Shawn Smarsh to end the game.
"That was an eight-pitcher gem," said Murphy, whose bullpen allowed only one run after the third. "I'm real proud of our guys for the way they battled back."
Pedroia's second homer, which gave ASU a 10-8 lead in the eighth, proved to be the difference after junior shortstop Nick McCoola pulled Wichita State (28-8) within one on a ninth-inning single up the middle.
Wichita State had plenty of chances down the stretch, but senior outfielder Nick Blasi was thrown out by Gosewisch when attempting to steal third with two outs in the eighth. The only bigger defensive play came in the ninth, when Zinicola fired a rifle to Pedroia, who tagged out senior infielder Brandon Green at second.
"I broke a little bit early because I didn't want their third-base coach to say anything, and Zech threw it right on the money, and we got him," Pedroia said. "It was serious momentum for us because we had nobody out and the guy was going to bunt."
Junior third baseman Josh Asanovich's three-run home run in the third cut the deficit to 7-4. Pedroia and junior left fielder Jeff Larish both homered in the fifth, and Gosewisch's double knocked out Wichita State starter Derek Roach.
"We knew it was a tough place to play with the fans, and we told Pat Bresnehan to keep us around," said Pedroia, who went 3-for-5 for his 21st multi-hit game of the season. "Our pitching from the fourth on kept us in the game, and we started swinging the bat."
Bresnehan worked out of a jam in the third, before retiring the side in order in the fourth. He walked two batters on eight straight balls in the fifth, but got junior outfielder Phil Napolitan to fly out to second to end the inning.
Averill shot down six consecutive batters in the sixth and seventh, clearing the way for junior Jason Urquidez, who lasted into the ninth in his first relief appearance of the season.
"What's the difference?" Murphy said when asked about using eight pitchers. "You play the game to win. If you start getting into this pitch-count thing and all this other nonsense ... these guys wanted to pitch."
Reach the reporter at brian.gomez@asu.edu.
