Bishop's Big Bat Paces Sun Devils in 16-5 Victory and Sweep over Notre Dame

by Tony Thai, Sun Devil Athletics

PHOENIX – A consistent offensive effort helped Sun Devil Baseball score at least one run in the first seven innings to help sweep the season opening series against Notre Dame with a 16-5 victory on Sunday afternoon at Phoenix Municipal Stadium.

Hunter Bishop and Spencer Torkelson each finished 4-for-5 in the contest with eight Sun Devils registering a hit and five ASU players with a multi-RBI game.

Bishop put ASU in the lead to stay early with two of his three RBIs coming by way of his first home run of the season – a line drive off the scoreboard in the first inning. The junior was 8-of-14 (.571) on the weekend with a team-leading seven runs scored, three doubles and the home run. 

Torkelson had four RBIs in the effort and finished his weekend batting 9-of-14 (.643) with nine RBIs, two doubles and five runs scored. Lyle Lin added two more RBI in the game to bring his total to seven on the season and Carter Aldrete also notched two RBI to keep pace with Torkelson with eight over the opening weekend. 

All told, the 2-7 hitters in ASU's lineup combined to bat .466 over the weekend (35-of-75) with 34 RBIs, while batting .526 with runners in scoring position (20-of-38). Torkelson was a perfect 6-for-6 with runners in scoring position over the course of the weekend. 

The Sun Devils also drew more walks (6 walks) than strikeouts (5 strikeouts) in the contest. On the weekend, ASU drew 22 walks to use 20 strikeouts. Trevor Hauver paced that charge with eight walks over three games and a .625 on-base percentage.

RJ Dabovich picked up the win in his first start as a Sun Devil as he went five innings, striking out four and giving up only three runs.

After surrendering a run in the second inning, base hits from Drew Swift and Torkelson scored three runs to give Arizona State a 5-1 lead.

The Sun Devils scored six more runs over the next four innings to go over 10 runs in the game and 40-plus runs for the series, making it the first time since 2012 that Arizona State had at least 10 runs in three consecutive games.

The 46 runs in the season opening series were the second-most in a three-game season opening series in program history behind only the 61 scored against Southern Utah in 2007. The 46 runs are the fourth-most for a three-game series overall since the 2000 season. 

In the seventh inning, Arizona State had four RBI singles and one sac-fly to tag five more scores on to the Irish.

Notre Dame singled in a run in the seventh and hit a solo home run in ninth inning to soften the blow before succumbing to defeat.

The Sun Devils are back at it with a single weekday game on Wednesday versus UC San Diego. The game starts at 6:30 p.m. Arizona time and can be viewed on the ASU Live Stream through Pac-12 Networks.