Sure, fans love to see home runs.
But winning teams in college baseball do the little things right.
In Thursday night’s extra inning loss to Cal State Bakersfield, the ASU baseball team repeatedly missed opportunities by not executing sacrifice plays late in the contest.
Tied in the bottom of the ninth inning, junior third baseman Riccio Torrez led off with a single to left field. Junior first baseman Zach Wilson followed, but failed to advance his teammate with a bunt. CSB would get out of the frame unscathed.
Now trailing by one in the bottom of the 11th, the first two Sun Devils reached base but junior outfielder Johnny Ruettiger could not get a bunt down with his first two strikes and was forced to swing away, leading to an unproductive out.
The No. 9 Sun Devils (9-2) out-hit the Roadrunners 10-4 but their inability to lay down sacrifices cost them dearly in the 2-1 defeat.
ASU made sure the same mistakes wouldn’t cost it again the rest of the weekend.
On Saturday against Kansas, the Sun Devils plated two of their runs on sacrifice flies from Torrez in the 4-3 ASU win.
“We practice it but it’s not as easy to do it in a game,” Torrez said. “It was good to see us come back and battle back and do the small things like getting bunts down, getting guys over and driving them in, especially in these close games.”
On Sunday against UC Riverside with the score knotted up at four in the 11th inning, the weekend finally came full-circle.
With the winning run on second base and no outs, Ruettiger attempted to lay down a sacrifice to advance the runner to third.
This time, however, the junior squared up a perfect bunt, allowing both himself and the runner on second to reach safely, setting the stage for a Torrez walk-off single two batters later.
“You couldn’t have drawn it up any better,” ASU coach Tim Esmay said. “We made the kids aware Thursday that it wasn’t acceptable and that we are going to be good at [sacrificing]. It just shows our players that when we do that, it sets it up for the other guys to succeed.”
Brady Rodgers injury update
ASU sophomore starting pitcher Brady Rodgers hasn’t pitched since opening night at Packard Stadium.
After tossing five innings of two-hit baseball against New Mexico, the Sun Devil ace felt tightness in his throwing arm.
Esmay originally said if the team were in conference play, he’d be pitching.
The absence of Rodgers has been felt the last two weekends with the Sun Devils dropping each game the sophomore would have normally started.
“He threw a nice bullpen session [Sunday],” Esmay said. “He didn’t have a chance to throw off the mound last week, so we got him out there and he felt pretty good, so to me, it sounds like it’s getting better and better.”
With a trip to No. 24 Auburn coming this weekend, ASU would like nothing more than to have its ace back on the mound come Friday night.
Reach the reporter at tyler.emerick@asu.edu
