A Sun Devil victory appeared to be a foregone conclusion on Friday night as ASU baseball led UC Davis 5-0 heading into the ninth inning. Then, it was chaos as a clean, impressive performance in the series opener was put into question.
UC Davis (4-8) put together a five-run inning to send the Sun Devils to their second consecutive extra innings game. Luckily for ASU, though, junior catcher Brian Serven's walk-off single in the 11th inning saved the team from an embarrassing collapse to a sub-.500 non-conference opponent.
Instead, the base hit gave them their sixth consecutive win.
Serven's game-winning hit came just one at-bat after he grounded into a double play to end the bottom of the ninth. It capped off a 2-for-5 performance at the plate on a night where he also threw out his 12th runner of the season.
"Obviously there was a little bit of a shock factor," Serven said. "We knew that we still had a good chance at winning that game because we know we can hit ... we were confident."
It was an unconventional ninth inning as the Aggies pinch-hit five times, ASU committed two errors and all five runs were scored on just four hits.
Freshman right-hander Gio Lopez came in for his ASU (11-3) debut looking to close the door, but failed to record a single out, giving up a walk and a hit. Senior Eric Melbostad and junior Eder Erives combined to finish out the inning, but the momentum had already begun. Melbostad allowed a pair of runs to score and Erives couldn't get out of it.
A pass ball allowed a run to score, an error drove in a second and then a sacrifice fly tied the game.
ASU head coach Tracy Smith said he wasn't mad or down on the team at all. Instead, he called the inning a "fluke" and attributed some of the group's struggles to its lack of depth, which was magnified.
"You can't keep running the same guys out there," he said. "You got to find some rest somehow, somewhere for people.
"We have a concern with depth ... Also, that was just a weird inning ... As long as you have three outs left, anything can happen, and that certainly did in the ninth inning."
He said the silver lining was that the team did not completely collapse as it could have when UC Davis' go-ahead run stood 90 feet away from home plate in that ninth inning. The team was shocked, but did not panic.
And just as the Sun Devils did multiple times in Fullerton in Wednesday night's 14-inning game, they found a way to get the final out and strand runners.
The game certainly did not need to be that close, though. ASU was 3-for-13 with runners in scoring position and stranded 10 men on base.
Smith said he was more frustrated in the first three innings of the game than the wild ninth.
"I thought we gave away at-bats," he said. "Even if a guy strikes out, I can tell the intent of whether they're keeping their hands back, or (if) they're just up there trying to see how far they can hit a ball...That's the stuff that we cannot do, regardless of who we're playing, where we're playing, we got to have good, professional at-bats."
However, an opportune two-out, bases-clearing triple by freshman right fielder Gage Canning in a 1-0 game extended ASU's lead to four runs. It proved to be monumental with the way the game's events unfolded.
Canning entered the game batting just .217, but Smith is hopeful that his performance will jumpstart things for the struggling outfielder.
"He's in there right now because he plays good defense, but we think that offense is going to come eventually," he said.
Friday's ninth inning partially buried sophomore Eli Lingos' starting performance. Lingos pitched six scoreless innings, giving up jut four hits and striking out five on 79 total pitches. He has now given up just one run in his past 13.2 innings of work, which spans three outings.
Additionally, junior shortstop Colby Woodmansee went 4-for-5 at the plate and drew a walk.
All things considered, Smith was proud of his team for finding a way to win, regardless of the lack of style in which the Sun Devils did it.
"I do like our response to adversity and I think you're seeing the results of that," Smith said. "Guys are picking each other up ... Darn near all the roster played tonight, and you found a way to win. There's value in that. It may not be what we see tonight, but it may be somebody that got in there that down the road helps us."
Reach the reporter at Justin.Toscano@asu.edu or on Twitter @justintoscano3.
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