ASU baseball had a solid weekend against Cal, but they fell back into bad habits coming into a midweek game against UNLV on Tuesday.
Over the weekend, the Sun Devils fought hard against the Golden Bears, winning two of three in the series, the loss coming Saturday in a hard fought game that went into eleven innings.
"The losing is never acceptable, but I would live with that effort any day of the week with our guys," head coach Tracy Smith said after Saturday's game. "I don't think anybody quit, we used basically everybody on the roster and they all contributed."
Sunday, freshman Zach Dixon got his first career start, and after only pitching one inning all season, managed to pitch a complete game shut-out, allowing only three hits to help the Sun Devils take the series.
In the midweek game against UNLV, ASU started out strong, putting two runs on the board right away in the first, but two errors in the sixth hurt the Sun Devils as the Rebels brought home six runs in just one inning.
"When you play poor defense, and you put that with a thin pitching staff, that makes it really, really tough on you," Smith said. "It's kind of been that way all year, and that's why we are where we are right now."
What went wrong? Where are improvements needed? This week on Dirt on the Spikes, we recap the Cal and UNLV games, and talk about the Sun Devils' inconsistencies and what to expect from this weekend's matchup against Stanford.
Previous episodes:
ASU baseball to take on talented Cal pitching Friday night
Dirt on the Spikes: ASU baseball finds itself at bottom of Pac-12
Reach the reporters at haley.stesiak@asu.edu or follow @haley_stesiak on Twitter and at Justin.Toscano@asu.edu or on Twitter @justintoscano3.
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