Steak and lobster. Jordan and Pippen. Schilling and Johnson.
The No. 5 ASU (14-3, 0-0 Pac-10) baseball team finished the five-game Coca-Cola Classic Tournament in Surprise by using its own formidable tandem.
Junior Josh Spence took the hill to start with junior staff ace Mike Leake coming on in relief.
The result, a 12-10 win over the previously surging Kansas, (10-4) was not exactly what one would expect from such a pitching concoction.
The Sun Devils, however, in an attempt to finish 3-2 in the week-long tournament and having used up much of the staff beforehand, gladly took a less-than-perfect performance from the duo.
“It’s a great win, man,” ASU coach Pat Murphy said. “A great win.”
Spence, having already made his first appearance back from a concussion suffered from being hit in the face with a ball, went four innings while allowing six hits, four walks and two earned runs.
Leake, in his first relief appearance of the year, went three innings, giving up five hits and three earned runs.
The statistics as they’re known to do, didn’t tell the whole story.
KU featured a lineup that had helped it win seven straight games heading into the ASU series and featured a hitter riding a 21-game hitting streak. Combined with a multitude of chalk-rising hits and a strike zone as erratic as the Dow Jones — if not in more directions — created a tough scenario for an ASU victory.
“Today was a defining moment,” Murphy said. “We should have lost that game.”
The Sun Devils opened a 12-4 lead heading into the top of the seventh. ASU scored all 12 of its runs between the third and the sixth, with home runs and run-scoring doubles from Kole Calhoun and freshman Riccio Torrez, as well as run-producing knocks from Leake and junior Carlos Ramirez and sophomore Matt Newman.
The cushion provided by the offense allowed for ASU to survive the top of the eighth inning. With Jordan Swagerty on the mound, the Jayhawks began to chip away.
After two had reached, a bloop single made it 12-6.
Two batters later and with the bases loaded, KU hitter Nick Fauce unloaded a pitch to left-center.
The grand slam made it 12-10. Swagerty was able to recover, however, getting a strike out and fly out to end the eighth and a 1-2-3 ninth to cap the victory with a final-pitch strike out.
The Sun Devils pitching staff kept 10 Jayhawk base runners stranded and gave opportunity for the two-run escape.
“Spence is still not back,” Murphy said. “They had a tight zone. Leake was not great. We wanted to learn something this week and that’s what we did.”
And what did the Sun Devil baseball team learn about itself?
“We learned how to be on the road for seven days, how to clutch up when we need to clutch up,” Murphy said. “If we don’t have a lot of mental toughness, we lose that game.”
On its first road trip of the season, albeit a jaunt across the Valley, and having already lost two tough games, the Sun Devils showed their mettle.
“I think we are really starting to show our true colors,” Calhoun said. “We are a young team, and everyone knows that. We don’t have freshmen anymore; we have baseball players. I think this is one of the toughest teams I have ever played on.”
Reach the reporter at nick.ruland@asu.edu.
