ASU baseball coach Pat Murphy has a problem.

It’s a good problem.

The Sun Devils (23-5, 8-1 Pac-10) finished off a three-game sweep of Pac-10 foe Washington on Sunday 6-2 behind a complete-game performance from freshman Mitchell Lambson. It was Lambson’s first career start.

“A freshman that wants the ball as much as he does is pretty special,” Murphy said during his postgame radio interview.

Lambson struck out nine batters, while allowing only five hits on Sunday and came on in relief of junior Mike Leake on Friday, going an
inning and a third of no-hit ball for his second save of the season.

Murphy said Lambson features three traditional pitches, which all are solid though not overwhelming.

Lambson’s greatest strength as a pitcher is his ability to change speeds, going from mid-80s on his fastball to mid-60s on his change-up, according to ASU color analyst Mike Rooney.

Given Lambson’s recent performances and sophomore Seth Blair’s most recent start against Cal State Fullerton, Murphy will face a dilemma when deciding his Sunday starter going forward.

Murphy indicated on Sunday in his interview that his decisions would be based on matchups.

The Sun Devils presented a plethora of matchup problems for the Husky offense all weekend.

In what has become a redundant story line, Leake and junior Josh Spence dominated the action on Friday and Saturday. The two starters combined to pitch 15 and two-third innings, allowing 12 combined hits and one earned run and striking out a combined 24 batters.

ASU’s offense improved its output from its most recent mini-slump.

The Sun Devils scored six runs on Sunday behind runs-scoring hits from freshman shortstop Drew Maggi, junior Raoul Torrez and sophomore Matt Newman. ASU took care of business early, getting all of their runs in the first four innings.

On Friday, ASU was able to squeak by on timely hitting to earn Leake his seventh win of the season.

Junior Carlos Ramirez had a two-out RBI single in the third and Raoul Torrez hit the go-ahead RBI single in the seventh.

Ramirez added insurance with a home run in the same inning.

On Saturday, the ASU offense broke out for 12 runs. As Spence dominated on the mound for his sixth win of the season, the Sun Devils cranked out 14 hits.

Ramirez hit his 10th home run of the season while freshman Zack MacPhee hit his second career home run in three games.

Junior Jason Kipnis, MacPhee, Maggi and Newman combined for 10 of the hits and four of ASU’s five doubles.

After getting a combined 10 runs in the three games prior to UW, the Sun Devils were able to score 21 runs in the three-game set over the weekend.

Murphy earned his 600th ASU victory on Saturday.

The Sun Devils played in front of more than 3,000 fans at the Seattle Mariner’s Safeco Field on Friday.

Reach the reporter at nick.ruland@asu.edu.