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ASU baseball wins third straight extra inning game

Junior Seth Martinez pitches a career-high 11 strikeouts in his eight innings on the mound.

Junior Seth Martinez (#8) pitches from the mound on Friday, March 3, 2016, at Phoenix Municipal Stadium during the gamea gainst Eastern Michigan University.
Junior Seth Martinez (#8) pitches from the mound on Friday, March 3, 2016, at Phoenix Municipal Stadium during the gamea gainst Eastern Michigan University.

ASU baseball gave fans their third straight night of free baseball on Saturday along with a seventh straight win as they came out on top of UC Davis 4-3 in 12 innings.

Friday night, it was a walk-off single by junior catcher Brian Serven in the eleventh that saved the night. Saturday, it was another at bat from Serven that gave ASU the win, this time a walk-off walk.

UC Davis junior pitcher Justin Mullins threw four straight balls to Serven with bases loaded from three previous walks.

Serven had an off night offensively as he came to the plate in that final at bat going 0-5 with two strikeouts on the night.

“Until he threw the strike, we weren’t going to have him swing the bat,” head coach Tracy Smith said. “Tough night for him offensively, but I have no qualms about having him at the plate in that situation, regardless of what he had done earlier in the night.”

Someone who didn’t have an off night: junior pitcher Seth Martinez.

Martinez had a career-high 11 strikeouts on the night, pitching eight innings and allowing three runs on five hits with 98 total pitches.

The junior ace had a no-hitter going into the sixth, when UC Davis began to battle. It hit consecutive doubles to break the no-no and put a run on the board, and then it tied the game at two.

Martinez' strength came from getting ahead early with the fastball.

“(It was) working both inside out and trying to have them swing the bat and then once we got 0-2 or 1-2 (count) just get try to get something in the dirt that they would swing at,” Martinez said. “For a little bit, it was working pretty good.”

Smith called Martinez’s performance “phenomenal.”

“The velocity, when it was there early, he was commanding both sides of the plate and doing a really good job with that,” Smith said. “Seth is Seth, and he showed why he is one of the better pitchers certainly that we have, and I think around, because he gives you a chance to win every single time he takes the mound.”

Senior Jordan Aboites relived Martinez in the ninth, pitching 2 1/3 innings. Aboites gave up a sacrifice fly that brought a runner home, but the run ended up being charged to Martinez. Sophomore Ryan Hingst then came on in the tenth to earn the win after 1 2/3 innings pitched as he held off UC Davis in extras.

Junior designated hitter Sebastian Zawada hit his fourth home run of the season to put ASU back on top after being tied at two in the sixth, again proving his value in the DH position.

Zawada then almost hit a walk-off in the ninth over the center-field wall, but it fell short by a few feet.

“He’s got power. Maybe if we moved those fences in he could have had a game winner and we all could have been home earlier,” Smith joked.

Of the third straight extra inning game Smith said, “I guess we just like to play a lot of baseball.”

The extra play will continue to help the Sun Devils develop and take each inning as it comes no matter how many are played, Smith said.

“I think that stuff makes you better down the road because you learn how to play in pressure situations so you’re trying to win one inning at a time, so whether it’s nine innings or 12 innings, it forces you to execute. I think that’ll help us down the road.”


Reach the reporter at haley.stesiak@asu.edu or follow @haley_stesiak on Twitter.

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