Senior infielder Joey Bielek slides in to second base while OSU senior Tim Arakawa fails to get him out, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2015, at Phoenix Municipal Stadium. The Sun Devils lost to the Cowboys 9-8. (Krista Tillman/The State Press)Despite outscoring No. 12 Oklahoma State (1-2) 8-3 in the last five innings, No. 18 ASU baseball (2-1) could not overcome the Cowboys six-run third inning and fell 9-8 in the final game of the series on Sunday.
The Sun Devils scored eight runs between innings four and seven, but failed to score in the eighth and ninth, including grounding into a double play with a runner on first and no outs in the bottom of the eighth.
After recording five strikeouts and only giving up one hit in the first two innings of the game, senior starting pitcher Darin Gillies gave up two hits and five earned runs in the top of the third inning before being relieved by sophomore Eder Erives.
The top of the third started when Gillies hit Oklahoma State center fielder Corey Hassel after being up 1-2 in the count. After Hassel advanced to second with a sac bunt, Gillies hit catcher Gage Green with a pitch on a 1-2 count.
Second baseman Tim Arakawa's RBI double scored Hassel and advanced Green to third. After Gillies walked designated hitter Conor Costello, first baseman Dustin Williams' single to right field scored two more to make it 3-0 Cowboys.
Trailing 3-0 with Gillies reeling, head coach Tracy Smith decided to bring in Erives.
"We're still learning and every time out is a more information that we can process for future situations," he said. "There's no margin of error with the tough teams we're playing now and Erives is a strike thrower, so we went to him."
Erives, who inherited a poor situation, gave up one hit and one run to make it 6-0 Cowboys after the top half of the third.
Erives walked the first batter he saw, loading the bases for third baseman Kevin Bradley, who hit a sacrifice fly to score another run.
After the sacrifice fly, left fielder Ryan Sluder doubled to left and drove in two more runs, ballooning Oklahoma State's lead to 6-0.
Smith said the learning curve involved in getting to know the players and their strengths will continue throughout the season.
"We played a lot of guys this weekend and usually an opponent like Oklahoma State limits your ability to do that," he said. "I want to know what we have before we go into conference play."
Smith noted that assessing the performances of all those who played Sunday will help the team as the season progresses.
"We saw some guys face adversity and we saw some guys with leads that didn't hold," he said. "You file it away and when those situations present themselves again, you look for the guys who are going to compete—the sooner we do that, the more comfortable we're going to feel."
He also said ASU needs to improve its mentality regarding Sunday games as opposed to Friday and Saturday games.
"If we're going to make the impression we need to make and play the caliber baseball we need to play on a national scene, a Sunday is just like a Friday," he said. "It needs to be quality, consistent, and something where we know what we're going to get."
Reach the reporter at Justin.Toscano@asu.edu or on Twitter @justintoscano3.
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