A chilly evening and slow beginning to the night turned into a Sun Devil victory as ASU baseball defeated New Mexico 7-4.
ASU has now won five of its last six, and took the first two games from the Lobos.
“We’re just kind of focusing on our pitching and defense and our hitting’s coming through right now too, which is really helpful,” sophomore second baseman Andrew Shaps said.
After two innings of scoreless play, the Sun Devils got a pair in the third. They really broke out in the fourth, though, loading the bases with no outs and taking advantage. They scored three in the inning.
The Sun Devils did it by playing small ball. Despite getting 16 hits in the game, only two were multiple-base hits.
Shaps walked to lead off the fourth inning and junior left fielder Daniel Williams dropped a bunt down the first base line. He drew the first baseman off the bag enough to race over and was called safe in a bang-bang play.
Freshman right fielder Gage Canning then laid a perfect bunt down the third base line and the Lobos were unable to do anything with it. Three on, no outs.
Freshman third baseman Jeremy McCuin struck out on a pitch that painted the inside corner — much to his and the crowd’s dismay — but sophomore second baseman Andrew Snow followed with a blooper down the right field line. A run came home and the bases remained loaded.
Junior first baseman David Greer struck out, bringing junior shortstop Colby Woodmansee to the plate. He popped the ball to center, and New Mexico’s sophomore Luis Gonzalez sprinted to get to hit. He dove, and it looked like he caught it, but the ball popped out. Heads-up Sun Devil baserunning allowed two to come home, and ASU took a 5-0 lead.
Head coach Tracy Smith said his players didn’t go into the night trying to play small ball; they just adjusted to the wind.
“I think the conditions tonight were not real favorable,” he said. “When we jumped out in the lead, I was kind of happy the wind started blowing in because (New Mexico is) a good hitting team, they’ve got a lot more home runs than we do.”
Sophomore pitcher Eli Lingos, who started the game for the Sun Devils, blasted through the top of the fifth, going 1-2-3. Through five, he had only given up one hit on 75 pitches and was mixing off-speed pitches with his fastball.
“My changeup’s kind of been my go-to,” he said. “These last couple of outings it’s been on which has really helped me, especially early in the game.”
After giving up a pair of hits in the sixth but not allowing any runs, Lingos faced pressure in the seventh. With runners on second and third with one out, Lingos was able to strike out a batter and force another to pop-up into foul territory. Only one run scored.
Lingos gave up one run on six hits in seven innings pitched.
“To me, he was the key for our win tonight,” Smith said. “That’s a really, really good hitting team and to hold them in check for seven innings again was a fantastic job by him.”
Andrew Shaps helped get the run back in the bottom half of the inning with a base hit up the middle to drive home Woodmansee. Shaps had an incredible day on the offensive side, going 3-for-3 with a walk, one RBI and two stolen bases.
“Sometimes I see the ball, sometimes I don’t,” he said. “Tonight I did … I tried to simplify everything.”
Gage Canning also had a strong outing, going 3-4 with a triple and three runs scored. He’s improved his play as the season’s gone on, and Smith has taken notice.
“He’s playing at a pretty high level right now as compared to even a month ago, and that’s probably a result of him just being basically thrown to the wolves,” Smith said. “You either sink or swim and I think right now he’s finally starting to figure out how to swim.”
With two outs in the ninth, miscommunication between Williams and Woodmansee on a pop-up allowed a pair of runs to score, but ASU held on to win 7-4.
“Tonight we make a silly error in the ninth inning that, had it been a close game, maybe we’re not sitting here all smiles,” Smith said without smiling. “For the most part, I think, the last two games we’ve played pretty good baseball.”
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