There wasn't anything unlucky about No. 13 for the ASU baseball team on Friday night.
The No. 2 Sun Devils pushed their undefeated record to 13-0 with a thrilling 9-8 comeback win over Auburn in front of 3,121 rowdy fans at Packard Stadium.
With the game tied at eight in the bottom of the eighth, sophomore Riccio Torrez knocked in sophomore Drew Maggi with a slow rolling groundout to second base to give the Sun Devils the winning run.
“I was just trying to get something through … [anything] to score the runner,” said Torrez, who was 1-for-4 with two RBI. “You don't got to put much juice into it.”
Added coach Tim Esmay: “It might be the hardest thing in baseball when [a situation] is set up for you … I told him that was the best grind-out [at-bat] of the night. He stayed over a slider and that was a good pitch.”
Torrez's opportunity came after Calhoun laid down a well-executed sacrifice bunt to move Maggi to third.
It took a furious rally to put ASU in position to strike for a winning run.
The Tigers used a two-run home run and an RBI double and capitalized on errors by shortstop Maggi and freshman second baseman Deven Marrero in the top of the fifth as part of a five-run barrage off junior starter Seth Blair that gave Auburn a 7-2 lead.
The Sun Devils struck right back in the bottom of the frame, though, with six runs scored and 11 hitters sent to the plate.
ASU's comeback started with a single by Maggi after a seven-pitch at-bat. Two batters later, Riccio Torrez knocked in Maggi and brother Raoul Torrez, followed by an RBI double by junior Matt Newman.
Sophomore Zach Wilson was next through the revolving door of base hits with a two-RBI double to draw ASU within one.
Two batters later, and RBI infield single by sophomore Austin Barnes knotted the score, and Raoul Torrez completed the fifth-inning onslaught three batters later with an RBI walk to score Barnes.
“In the game of baseball, you are going to have some adversity and you're going to have some things that don't go your way, and it's always about how you respond to it,” said Esmay, who set the mark for best start to a season by a first-year head coach, surpassing Jim Brock's mark of 12-0.
While Blair struggled, ASU's relievers stifled the Auburn hitters, who came in with a team batting average of .385.
After sophomore Mitchell Lambson pitched a scoreless sixth and seventh, hard-throwing freshman Jake Barrett took the ball in the eighth.
Barrett struck out Auburn's first two hitters to the plate in dominating fashion, but Tiger pinch-hitter Kevin Patterson made the best of his only at-bat by belting a mammoth home run to center field on a 3-1 pitch.
Barrett quickly settled down and induced a groundout to get out of the inning.
After Torrez's go-ahead RBI in the eighth, sophomore Jordan Swagerty struck out the side in the ninth to earn his fourth save of the season.
“I thought that was his best outing of the season,” Esmay said of Swagerty.
ASU will pitch junior Merrill Kelly in the second game of the series on Saturday.
So what does Esmay think about making his way into the Sun Devil record books?
“I've got to wake up tomorrow and say, 'Come on, boys, we've got to do it again,” the coach said. “You've got to have a short memory and come back and see how you're going to respond the next day.”
Reach the reporter at nkosmide@asu.edu
