(Photo: Nicholas Badders/WCSN)
Arizona State (2-2) came into the final matchup of a four-game sweepstakes against the Miami (Ohio) Redhawks (2-2) looking to pick up a series win after taking games two and three of the weekend.
It just wasn’t to be.
The Sun Devils would come up short, losing 16-8, in large part due to a second-inning meltdown on defense.
Freshman Brady Corrigan was handed the ball and hobbled his way through his 1.2 innings.
“It wasn’t [our original plan], but we just kept him hot because it was a 30-minute intermission,” ASU head coach Tracy Smith on starting Corrigan.
After a perfect frame in the first, the right-hander allowed two straight baserunners and a sacrifice bunt during the top of the second inning, putting his team in a major jam.
Insert the crucial ASU errors.
Freshman shortstop Drew Swift fielded a ball up the middle, going to his left on a weak grounder from Miami catcher Hayden Senger. Senger was 95 percent of the way up the line when Swift decided to try and make a heroic throw to first. The result was less than heroic, to say the least.
The ball sailed well up the line allowing an additional run to score, to go along with Landon Stephens who had earlier reached home safely on the play.
Swift is confident plays like this will not become a regular habit.
“Mistakes are going to happen,” Swift said. “I had a couple of throwing errors but just minor issues and they’ll be fixed up.”
After a walk to designated hitter Kyle Wrinkler, the score stood at 3-1 RedHawks with the bases juiced and two outs in the second. But next came what may have ended up being the most critical mistake of the weekend.
Devils third baseman Carter Aldrete bobbled a ball on a tough hop at third base, ultimately being unable to get the force out at third, resulting in Miami extending their lead by three runs.
“The shame of it is Aldrete has been playing great in practice and he struggled this weekend,” Smith said.
It was not the simple miscue by Aldrete that costed Arizona State the game. It was the backbreaker that came next.
Stephens stepped to the plate for the second time in the inning and tattooed the first pitch he saw long past the substantial dimensions of Phoenix Municipal Stadium, landing on top of the dirt hill in left field for a grand slam. It put the game out of reach at 8-1 in favor of Miami.
“That was my biggest disappointment,” Smith said. “I’m going to go home tonight and say, ‘What the hell was that,’ because that’s not what we’ve been doing. We’ve been playing very clean defense.”
Smith’s team was able to regain their composure to some extent after the second inning debacle. They scored seven runs throughout their final eight offensive frames and sent RedHawks starter Grant Hartwig to the showers after just two innings. ASU surprisingly cut the deficit to three after the bottom of the sixth and were within four after the eighth.
But Grant Schneider’s four earned runs on four hits in the ninth burned out any flickering hope that the Sun Devil faithful were holding on to.
After Corrigan was pulled, a handful of relievers stepped into the game to finish the job in the final 7.1 innings. Chaz Montoya (1.2 IP, 0 ER), Jake Godfrey (0.2 IP, 0 ER), Fitz Stadler (2.0 IP, 0 ER), Connor Higgins (2 IP, 3 ER), and Schneider all made appearances.
The Sun Devils will travel to Scottsdale, Ariz. on Wednesday to square off against the Arizona Diamondbacks for an exhibition game at Salt River Fields before hosting the St. Mary’s Gaels for a weekend series Feb. 23-25. First pitch is scheduled for 1 p.m. MST on Wednesday afternoon.
