The No. 20 ASU baseball team was a Drew Stankiewicz leadoff single away from being no-hit in their Pac-12 road opener against No. 3 Oregon State Friday night.
Saturday was the Sun Devils’ (13-6, 2-3 Pac-12) time to return the favor and they did just that and more as freshman Ryan Kellogg threw the first ASU no-hitter since 1993 in a 4-0 victory over the Beavers (20-2, 4-1 Pac-12).
Kellogg was dominant all day, baffling the Beaver hitters for the eighth no-hitter in school history and first ever against a Pac-12 opponent.
"It is definitely a huge moment in my career, as well as for ASU baseball,” Kellogg said. “To come out and have a performance like this after the day we had yesterday, especially against No. 3 Oregon State, is great for the team and the program.”
The freshman took a perfect game all the way until the seventh, but Stankiewicz bobbled a ground ball to break it up.
Redshirt sophomore outfielder Trever Allen dropped a pop fly in the eighth, but that still didn’t faze Kellogg, who struck out the first two batters looking in the ninth before ending the game himself on a comebacker.
Kellogg said he was happy with his teammates’ defensive performance, even though it cost him a chance for perfection.
"I knew they were behind me the whole game,” Kellogg said. “Only two mishaps, but that's baseball, and it happens, so you just have to work around it. They played phenomenally behind me, and I was really happy about it.”
Offensively, the Sun Devils gave Kellogg enough support to allow him to move to 5-0 on the season.
Sophomore outfielder Jake Peevyhouse, arguably the Sun Devils’ hottest hitter, led off the scoring in the fifth with his first career homerun to right field.
Peevyhouse added an RBI single in the eighth as the Sun Devils racked up 10 hits against six Beaver pitchers.
“We came out aggressive, swung the bats early and kept it going throughout the game,” Kellogg said.
The game belonged to Kellogg, though, who was making his first career road Pac-12 start and said he fed on the hostile crowd.
"It felt great,” Kellogg said. “They were definitely against me from the start, and then especially when we got in the later innings. I just tried to drown it out and keep pitching the same way I'd been pitching the whole game.”
With the victory, Kellogg and the Sun Devils won for only the second time in the past six games and avoided falling three games under .500 in Pac-12 play.
"It was a bounce-back day after what happened yesterday,” Kellogg said. “We kind of took that to heart, and we weren't going to let that happen again today. I just tried to come out and pitch, and it all came together today.”
Reach the reporter at dsshapi1@asu.edu
