As the old baseball adage goes, a double play is a pitcher’s best friend.
By that logic, the ASU pitching staff had plenty of pals on Sunday.
Washington spread out 11 hits during sophomore starter Jake Borup’s 5 1/3 innings of work, but three double plays turned by the Sun Devil infield during that period helped limit the Huskies to three runs en route to a 10-4 win and a 2-1 series victory in front of 2,494 at Packard Stadium.
The No. 1 Sun Devils (33-5, 11-4 Pac-10) turned their fourth double play of the game with a 7-3 lead in the seventh, keyed by a stop on a sharp grounder to the mound by freshman pitcher Brady Rodgers, and ended the eighth inning with a 5-4-3 gem for a total of five double plays, tying a school record.
ASU nearly set the record with a sixth double play in the ninth, but sophomore second baseman Zack MacPhee bobbled the handle on a sharply hit ground ball and was only able to record a force out at second.
“[Infield coach] Mike Benjamin works a tremendous amount of hours with those guys,” ASU coach Tim Esmay said. “What goes into those plays is not only making the play, but positioning and understanding pitches — the game within the game.”
A leather showcase on defense for the Sun Devils was accompanied by an aluminum chorus at the plate.
ASU responded to a 9-4 loss on Saturday — the team’s first Pac-10 defeat at home — with 16 hits, including a trio of home runs.
Sophomore Drew Maggi led off the game with a solo shot to left, his second career home run and first at Packard Stadium, and was matched in the third with a two-run blast by senior right fielder Kole Calhoun over the right-field fence that rolled to Karsten Golf Course, his second home run in as many games.
Leading 4-1 in the fifth, ASU relied on another clutch hit from a senior, a two-out bloop single to right by third baseman Raoul Torrez that scored Calhoun and sophomore designated hitter Zach Wilson.
Junior left fielder Matt Newman followed with a double down the right-field line to score Torrez and put ASU up 7-1.
After three singles in the sixth led to two UW (20-18, 5-7) runs, Wilson knocked ASU’s third home run of the game to left-center to give the Sun Devils a 9-3 advantage. It was the second homer of the series for Wilson.
The Sun Devils took advantage of a Husky pitching staff that has yielded by far the most home runs in the conference this season, belting eight round trippers during the three-game series.
ASU completed its scoring in the eighth with an RBI single by sophomore first baseman Riccio Torrez that plated MacPhee, who was one of three Sun Devils to record three hits (Calhoun, Raoul Torrez).
MacPhee set the tone early with a diving ground-ball stop on the second pitch of the game, helping Borup — who moved his record to 8-1 — retire the first batter he faced for the first time in eight games.
“How about that play MacPhee made to start the game?” Esmay said. “That’s being ready first pitch. We talked about it earlier that sometimes a game changer can come in the first inning … to make that play and then get the double play to get out of that [first] inning meant a lot.”
Reach the reporter at nkosmide@asu.edu
