PHOENIX – No. 24 Sun Devil Baseball staved off a rivalry sweep, rallying from a four-run deficit to take down #22 Arizona, 8-4, in the series finale on Sunday evening at Phoenix Municipal Stadium.
The Sun Devils (21-11, 8-4 Big 12) remained one game back of first in the Big 12 standings with the victory behind a Herculean effort out of the bullpen from Cole Carlon who retired all 13 batters he faced in order while the bats came alive to the tune of 14 hits and eight unanswered runs in the second half of the game.
Carlon was quite literally unhittable in his 4.1 innings out of the pen as he struck out 10 of the 13 batters he faced, including seven in a row at one point - tied for the fourth-most consecutive strikeouts by a Sun Devil pitcher in program history.
He became the third Sun Devil pitcher to record double digit strikeouts this weekend as the staff finished with 45 total strikeouts - its most in a series since it had 46 against Southern Utah in 2001.
Matt King went 3-for-3 on the offensive side as he broke the Sun Devils out of their offensive lull in the fifth inning with his two run shot to get ASU on the board at 4-2 - his first homer of the year. ASU would erupt for four more runs in the sixth to take its first lead of the game and held on from there.
Jacob Tobias and Landon Hairston each added multiple hits and Isaiah Jackson had the go-ahead knock in the sixth with his two-RBI single.
ASU will host a midweek contest against CSUN this Tuesday with an early first pitch scheduled for 1 p.m. AZT before heading on the road for four straight games starting with a Big 12 weekend series at Cincinnati beginning Friday and a Monday non-conference tilt at Purdue after that.
TURNING POINT
Things looked inauspicious for the Sun Devils after the Wildcats took a 4-0 advantage in the fourth inning behind a three-run wall scraper inside the right field foul pole to inevitably chase starter Jaden Alba from the game. That brought in Cole Carlon from the bullpen and the sophomore rolled through the potent Wildcat offense starting his night of with a strikeout to get out of the inning and absolutely holding Arizona in check the remainder of the way, striking out 10 and retiring all 13 batters he faced in order to allow the Sun Devils the chance to rally.
BIG MOMENT
After a huge two-run home run from Matt King in the bottom of the fourth, his first of the season, the Sun Devil batters went to work in the bottom of the sixth. Nine batters came to the plate for ASU, and four came around to score. With the bases loaded, King was hit by a pitch, bringing in one run. The big hit then came from Isaiah Jackson, who singled to right center, driving in two runs and giving the Devils their first lead of the game.
FINAL STRAW
After ASU tacked on two runs in the bottom of the eighth, Lucas Kelly took the ball for the ninth. Kelly inherited a now four-run advantage and didn't allow the Wildcats back in it as he picked up a pair of strikeouts to put the exclamation mark on Sunday evening's contest.
PLAYER OF THE GAME
Entering the game in the fourth inning, Cole Carlon pitched a masterpiece in relief, retiring 13 straight batters, including seven in a row on strikeouts. The sophomore stayed composed on the mound, and only pitched into three full counts in his 4.1 innings pitched. Carlon reached a career high in strikeouts, with 10, and lowered his season ERA to 2.12, giving the Sun Devils hitters an opportunity to get the offense going.
NOTABLES
Head Coach Willie Bloomquist
Opening Statement
"It was big on our guys to come back. Last couple of days have been kind of rock bottom. You don't like losing games at home, especially to those guys. To get down 4-0 today and not show a whole lot of signs of offense, but to be able to come back and steal one there and fight the last half of that game and come back go away with the win. Hopefully we can use that momentum as a huge positive moving forward."
On Cole Carlon's dominant performance
"Kid was electric tonight. That's the best I've ever seen him. He faced 13 hitters, punched out 10. That was impressive by him. We went a little bit longer than we wanted to. We stretched him out one more inning, but the kid was rolling. I didn't want to take him out. He was throwing the heck out of it. Everything was working well. Pitches were tunneling great, had some fizz on it when it was coming out too, which was good to see. He had it all working tonight."
On much improved offensive performance
"I think just more defined on what we're trying to do and staying with it, even if we got runners on. I mean, to me, that was the whole series. It seemed like anytime they got a runner on, they came up with a big hit and drove them in. Every time we got a runner on we hit into a double play or demolished any type of rally and finally in the 5th and 6th there today we were able to break through and get some hits with guys in scoring position and hits with guys on base and string something together. (I) made the comment yesterday that our hits were meaningless. It's like they were one hit wonders and then that was it. Everybody got a hit except for a couple of guys. But today we're able to stack them on top of each other and create a rally. It seemed like on the flip side every time those guys got a guy on, they strung 2 or 3 hits together and scored and that was the frustrating part on our end. But yeah, much better offensive approach."
On how the team can build off the win heading into the back-half of the season
"Great experience, minus obviously you lose the series, which we don't want to talk about that too much. But, the atmosphere at Muni this weekend was unbelievable. The fans showed up, so thank you to the fans for coming out. It was just huge. Today was on national television, so everyone got to see a pretty packed house here at Muni, a great game. Those are the positives you take away from it. You try to look at Friday and Saturday night as tough as they were to swallow, those expose some things that we have to get better at. And if we want to make a run at this thing, we have to get better at those types of things. When you play better teams, those things get exposed and we have to address those rather than going along the rest of the season thinking everything's great and hunky dory. If you're lucky enough to get to the postseason, those things get exposed too late. Now we can address them. We took yesterday as kind of our low point. I didn't sleep a whole lot the last couple of nights. But to bounce back the way we did today and hopefully we can use that momentum as something to build upon as we continue the rest of our season. We're going to have some tough weekends and tough weeks ahead of us, but hopefully this is the kick start to something special going forward branching off on that."
Pitcher Cole Carlon
On what was working for him today
"I'm really just filling up the zone and trusting all my pitches, mainly my slider, and just overall, throwing everything with intent over the plate."
On the hitters getting insurance runs
"I felt great. Those guys can swing it. I knew as soon as we got back in the dugout, knew they were going to start swinging the bats. We started getting that energy up a little bit in the dugout, and we just took off from there."
Catcher Brody Briggs
On the strengths of the pitching staff
"I think our guys just attack the zone and we have a lot of competitive guys on our staff at the end of the day. So with the combination of just attacking the zone and their confidence, there's not a lot of guys that are going to hit them, which is pretty good."
On his three-hit performance
"It's just one of those days where it just happened to be three hits.I don't think I executed as good as I should have at all. But, it's baseball, sometimes it works out for you. So I'm just up there trying to compete and trying to win a baseball game at the end of the day."
Infielder Matt King
On his home run affecting the game
"It was huge. A change of momentum right there. I was really just trying to get on base, get Compton over, get him in, but changing the momentum was huge.
On the team's mentality after falling behind early
"Mainly just picking each other up, trying to get some more energy in the dugout. And when you feel like guys are behind you and pick each other up, you take off. So I think that's what we did."
Pitcher Lucas Kelly
On pitching in the ninth
"It's always tough coming in after a guy like Carlon, absolutely electric, but it was good to just get back out there at home in front of the most underrated fans in the country."
INNING BY INNING
First Inning
Jaden Alba took the mound for the Sun Devils, posting a scoreless first inning, the first of the weekend. Arizona took a one-out walk, but the runner did not come around to score, as back-to-back groundouts, including a comebacker off of Alba, closed out the frame.
After Kyle Walker led off with a flyout to left, Landon Hairston reached on a base hit to left field. However, Nu'u Contrades grounded into a double play, ending the inning.
Second Inning
Alba returned to action and suffered a leadoff single. He then responded by recording three straight punchouts to work around the leadoff knock and hang a zero for the frame.
Jacob Tobias led things off with a base knock up the middle, but the Sun Devils' Achilles heel struck again, as Brandon Compton lined into a double play. Matt King added a base hit of his own, but Isaiah Jackson grounded out to wrap up the second.
Third Inning
The Devils posted another scoreless inning, as Alba struck out the first two batters before issuing a walk. A balk moved the runner over to second, but Alba was able to get the next batter to fly out to center.
The Sun Devils couldn't get anything going on the basepaths, as the only baserunner came on Kyle Walker's two-out walk. Walker was then caught stealing to end the inning.
Fourth Inning
The Wildcats struck first, as four-straight hits included three extra base hits and a three-run home run to give them the 4-0 advantage. Alba then picked up a pair of groundouts before allowing a walk in an eight-pitch battle. The walk would be the final batter Alba faced as Cole Carlon took the ball in relief. Carlon worked a quick strikeout to prevent any further damage.
Landon Hairston had a leadoff opposite field single to begin the fourth. The double play remained the Sun Devils' kryptonite as Nu'u Contrades rolled into a 6-4-3 double play before Jacob Tobias went down on strikes.
Fifth Inning
Carlon returned to the mound for his second inning of work, pitching a 1-2-3 fifth, punctuated with two strikeouts.
Compton led off the inning with a double off the left field wall, and King followed it up with a two-run home run to left center field, cutting the deficit to 4-2. Back-to-back strikeouts followed before Brody Briggs singled into right field. Walker then grounded out to the pitcher to close out the inning.
Sixth Inning
Carlon remained dialed in on the mound, striking out the side to pick up his sixth punch out through 2.1 innings of work.
A leadoff walk of Hairston followed by a Contrades single set the table for a potential big inning. A walk of Compton loaded the bases, where King drew a HBP to plate a run and make it 4-3. With the bases still loaded, Jackson ripped a two-run single to give the Devils the 5-4 advantage. A little help from the Wildcats resulted in a Brody Briggs double that plated another run, bringing things to 6-4.
Seventh Inning
Carlon continued dominating on the mound, collecting two more strikeouts and pitching another scoreless frame.
Tobias doubled with two-outs, getting into scoring position, but a groundout from Compton ended the inning with the ASU still holding on to a two-run lead.
Eighth Inning
Carlon toed the rubber yet again, remaining the storyline of the contest with another perfect inning. The lefty picked up another two strikeouts to bring his total to a career-high 10, and more importantly a zero on the board for Arizona.
The Sun Devils added some much needed insurance runs as Kien Vu brought home King to make it 7-4. Briggs followed suit with a perfectly executed bunt that scored Jackson on an Arizona throwing error. The Devils went on top 8-4 after eight innings of play.
Ninth Inning
Lucas Kelly took the mound for the Sun Devils, looking to close out the win for the Sun Devils. He did just that, working around two singles to put up a scoreless inning and preserve the 8-4 win for Arizona State.
The Sun Devils (21-11, 8-4 Big 12) remained one game back of first in the Big 12 standings with the victory behind a Herculean effort out of the bullpen from Cole Carlon who retired all 13 batters he faced in order while the bats came alive to the tune of 14 hits and eight unanswered runs in the second half of the game.
Carlon was quite literally unhittable in his 4.1 innings out of the pen as he struck out 10 of the 13 batters he faced, including seven in a row at one point - tied for the fourth-most consecutive strikeouts by a Sun Devil pitcher in program history.
He became the third Sun Devil pitcher to record double digit strikeouts this weekend as the staff finished with 45 total strikeouts - its most in a series since it had 46 against Southern Utah in 2001.
Matt King went 3-for-3 on the offensive side as he broke the Sun Devils out of their offensive lull in the fifth inning with his two run shot to get ASU on the board at 4-2 - his first homer of the year. ASU would erupt for four more runs in the sixth to take its first lead of the game and held on from there.
Jacob Tobias and Landon Hairston each added multiple hits and Isaiah Jackson had the go-ahead knock in the sixth with his two-RBI single.
ASU will host a midweek contest against CSUN this Tuesday with an early first pitch scheduled for 1 p.m. AZT before heading on the road for four straight games starting with a Big 12 weekend series at Cincinnati beginning Friday and a Monday non-conference tilt at Purdue after that.
TURNING POINT
Things looked inauspicious for the Sun Devils after the Wildcats took a 4-0 advantage in the fourth inning behind a three-run wall scraper inside the right field foul pole to inevitably chase starter Jaden Alba from the game. That brought in Cole Carlon from the bullpen and the sophomore rolled through the potent Wildcat offense starting his night of with a strikeout to get out of the inning and absolutely holding Arizona in check the remainder of the way, striking out 10 and retiring all 13 batters he faced in order to allow the Sun Devils the chance to rally.
BIG MOMENT
After a huge two-run home run from Matt King in the bottom of the fourth, his first of the season, the Sun Devil batters went to work in the bottom of the sixth. Nine batters came to the plate for ASU, and four came around to score. With the bases loaded, King was hit by a pitch, bringing in one run. The big hit then came from Isaiah Jackson, who singled to right center, driving in two runs and giving the Devils their first lead of the game.
FINAL STRAW
After ASU tacked on two runs in the bottom of the eighth, Lucas Kelly took the ball for the ninth. Kelly inherited a now four-run advantage and didn't allow the Wildcats back in it as he picked up a pair of strikeouts to put the exclamation mark on Sunday evening's contest.
PLAYER OF THE GAME
Entering the game in the fourth inning, Cole Carlon pitched a masterpiece in relief, retiring 13 straight batters, including seven in a row on strikeouts. The sophomore stayed composed on the mound, and only pitched into three full counts in his 4.1 innings pitched. Carlon reached a career high in strikeouts, with 10, and lowered his season ERA to 2.12, giving the Sun Devils hitters an opportunity to get the offense going.
NOTABLES
- Sun Devil pitchers recorded 45 strikeouts over the weekend (15 k/game), the first time recording 40+ strikeouts in a series since recording 40 in the first three games of the 2024 Ohio State series.
- The 45 strikeouts in the series were the most since 2001, where ASU recorded 46 across the first three-games against Southern Utah. It hasn't happened against a power five conference since at least 1998.
- Of those 45 strikeouts, starting pitchers Ben Jacobs, Jack Martinez and Jaden Alba teamed up for 27 of them, compared to 11 strikeouts by the Wildcat starting pitchers.
- Cole Carlon recorded a career-high 10 strikeouts over 4.1 innings of work. That number marks the second most for a Sun Devil reliever since 2021 (Tie: Tyler Thornton- 11 vs. Rhode Island 4/30/21; Hunter Omlid- 11 vs. Utah Valley 3/19/24)
- At one point, Carlon retired seven straight batters on strikeouts, which is tied for the fourth-most consecutive strikeouts by a Sun Devil in program history.
- With his effort, Carlon improved to 2-0 for the year with a 2.12 ERA while striking out an incredible 48 batters in just 29.2 innings of work and holding opponents to a team-low .112 average against.
- Carlon has now retired 26 consecutive batters dating back to the March 25th contest against UNLV.
- Sun Devil pitchers struck out double digit batters in all three games of the series, marking the 20th time in 32 games this season recording double digit strikeouts.
- Arizona State pitchers have accumulated 345 strikeouts on the season, which leads the Big 12. The next closest program has 311.
- Nu'u Contrades has reached base safely in all 32 games this season and has reached in 40 consecutive games dating back to his freshman season after reaching in all five games in his injury shortened sophomore campaign and the last three of 2023.
- Despite a 19-game hit streak being snapped, Kyle Walker extended his on base streak to 20 games with a third inning walk.
- Big innings have been the theme of ASU's season as the team has now scored in 112 halves of an inning on the year and have plated two or more runs in 73 of those.
- ASU recorded multiple doubles for the 23rd time this season (32 games), finishing with three to bring its total to 29 over the last seven games. The Sun Devils increased their season total to 84, which leads the Big 12. The team also ranks third in runs and total bases, and second in slugging percentage.
- ASU has outscored teams 476-289 over its last 48 regular season games dating back to last season, posting a 35-14 record in the process.
- Defending Big 12 Newcomer of the Week Matt King has now recorded a nine-game hitting streak. It is tied for his career best among 191 games between ASU and UTSA.
- Jacob Tobias is currently on a seven-game hitting streak.
- Freshman Landon Hairston has been on a tear over the last 20 games. He is hitting .365 (23-63) with 11 RBIs and nine multi-hit efforts and a .494 OBP. His season average has risen from .222 to .342 during that span. Hairston is batting 11-for-29 (.379) in innings 7-9 this season.
- Eighth of the nine hitters in the starting lineup recorded at least one hit, and all reached base at least one time. The only starter without a hit was Kyle Walker, who reached on a walk.
- The Sun Devils posted their 19th game this season without an error and have quietly put up a .983 fielding percentage on the year - a number that ranked ninth in the country as of Thursday and first in the Big 12. ASU ranked outside the Top-100 in each of the last three seasons in the category.
- The Sun Devils have 36 innings this season scoring at least three runs, 15 with 4+ and nine with 5+.
- The team has 10 or more hits in 17 games so far this season. ASU recorded 10 or more hits in 39 of 58 games last season and in nine-straight games to conclude the regular season and 16 of the last 17 in the regular season. ASU's 652 total hits last season were tops in the Pac-12 and 14th nationally.
Head Coach Willie Bloomquist
Opening Statement
"It was big on our guys to come back. Last couple of days have been kind of rock bottom. You don't like losing games at home, especially to those guys. To get down 4-0 today and not show a whole lot of signs of offense, but to be able to come back and steal one there and fight the last half of that game and come back go away with the win. Hopefully we can use that momentum as a huge positive moving forward."
On Cole Carlon's dominant performance
"Kid was electric tonight. That's the best I've ever seen him. He faced 13 hitters, punched out 10. That was impressive by him. We went a little bit longer than we wanted to. We stretched him out one more inning, but the kid was rolling. I didn't want to take him out. He was throwing the heck out of it. Everything was working well. Pitches were tunneling great, had some fizz on it when it was coming out too, which was good to see. He had it all working tonight."
On much improved offensive performance
"I think just more defined on what we're trying to do and staying with it, even if we got runners on. I mean, to me, that was the whole series. It seemed like anytime they got a runner on, they came up with a big hit and drove them in. Every time we got a runner on we hit into a double play or demolished any type of rally and finally in the 5th and 6th there today we were able to break through and get some hits with guys in scoring position and hits with guys on base and string something together. (I) made the comment yesterday that our hits were meaningless. It's like they were one hit wonders and then that was it. Everybody got a hit except for a couple of guys. But today we're able to stack them on top of each other and create a rally. It seemed like on the flip side every time those guys got a guy on, they strung 2 or 3 hits together and scored and that was the frustrating part on our end. But yeah, much better offensive approach."
On how the team can build off the win heading into the back-half of the season
"Great experience, minus obviously you lose the series, which we don't want to talk about that too much. But, the atmosphere at Muni this weekend was unbelievable. The fans showed up, so thank you to the fans for coming out. It was just huge. Today was on national television, so everyone got to see a pretty packed house here at Muni, a great game. Those are the positives you take away from it. You try to look at Friday and Saturday night as tough as they were to swallow, those expose some things that we have to get better at. And if we want to make a run at this thing, we have to get better at those types of things. When you play better teams, those things get exposed and we have to address those rather than going along the rest of the season thinking everything's great and hunky dory. If you're lucky enough to get to the postseason, those things get exposed too late. Now we can address them. We took yesterday as kind of our low point. I didn't sleep a whole lot the last couple of nights. But to bounce back the way we did today and hopefully we can use that momentum as something to build upon as we continue the rest of our season. We're going to have some tough weekends and tough weeks ahead of us, but hopefully this is the kick start to something special going forward branching off on that."
Pitcher Cole Carlon
On what was working for him today
"I'm really just filling up the zone and trusting all my pitches, mainly my slider, and just overall, throwing everything with intent over the plate."
On the hitters getting insurance runs
"I felt great. Those guys can swing it. I knew as soon as we got back in the dugout, knew they were going to start swinging the bats. We started getting that energy up a little bit in the dugout, and we just took off from there."
Catcher Brody Briggs
On the strengths of the pitching staff
"I think our guys just attack the zone and we have a lot of competitive guys on our staff at the end of the day. So with the combination of just attacking the zone and their confidence, there's not a lot of guys that are going to hit them, which is pretty good."
On his three-hit performance
"It's just one of those days where it just happened to be three hits.I don't think I executed as good as I should have at all. But, it's baseball, sometimes it works out for you. So I'm just up there trying to compete and trying to win a baseball game at the end of the day."
Infielder Matt King
On his home run affecting the game
"It was huge. A change of momentum right there. I was really just trying to get on base, get Compton over, get him in, but changing the momentum was huge.
On the team's mentality after falling behind early
"Mainly just picking each other up, trying to get some more energy in the dugout. And when you feel like guys are behind you and pick each other up, you take off. So I think that's what we did."
Pitcher Lucas Kelly
On pitching in the ninth
"It's always tough coming in after a guy like Carlon, absolutely electric, but it was good to just get back out there at home in front of the most underrated fans in the country."
INNING BY INNING
First Inning
Jaden Alba took the mound for the Sun Devils, posting a scoreless first inning, the first of the weekend. Arizona took a one-out walk, but the runner did not come around to score, as back-to-back groundouts, including a comebacker off of Alba, closed out the frame.
After Kyle Walker led off with a flyout to left, Landon Hairston reached on a base hit to left field. However, Nu'u Contrades grounded into a double play, ending the inning.
Second Inning
Alba returned to action and suffered a leadoff single. He then responded by recording three straight punchouts to work around the leadoff knock and hang a zero for the frame.
Jacob Tobias led things off with a base knock up the middle, but the Sun Devils' Achilles heel struck again, as Brandon Compton lined into a double play. Matt King added a base hit of his own, but Isaiah Jackson grounded out to wrap up the second.
Third Inning
The Devils posted another scoreless inning, as Alba struck out the first two batters before issuing a walk. A balk moved the runner over to second, but Alba was able to get the next batter to fly out to center.
The Sun Devils couldn't get anything going on the basepaths, as the only baserunner came on Kyle Walker's two-out walk. Walker was then caught stealing to end the inning.
Fourth Inning
The Wildcats struck first, as four-straight hits included three extra base hits and a three-run home run to give them the 4-0 advantage. Alba then picked up a pair of groundouts before allowing a walk in an eight-pitch battle. The walk would be the final batter Alba faced as Cole Carlon took the ball in relief. Carlon worked a quick strikeout to prevent any further damage.
Landon Hairston had a leadoff opposite field single to begin the fourth. The double play remained the Sun Devils' kryptonite as Nu'u Contrades rolled into a 6-4-3 double play before Jacob Tobias went down on strikes.
Fifth Inning
Carlon returned to the mound for his second inning of work, pitching a 1-2-3 fifth, punctuated with two strikeouts.
Compton led off the inning with a double off the left field wall, and King followed it up with a two-run home run to left center field, cutting the deficit to 4-2. Back-to-back strikeouts followed before Brody Briggs singled into right field. Walker then grounded out to the pitcher to close out the inning.
Sixth Inning
Carlon remained dialed in on the mound, striking out the side to pick up his sixth punch out through 2.1 innings of work.
A leadoff walk of Hairston followed by a Contrades single set the table for a potential big inning. A walk of Compton loaded the bases, where King drew a HBP to plate a run and make it 4-3. With the bases still loaded, Jackson ripped a two-run single to give the Devils the 5-4 advantage. A little help from the Wildcats resulted in a Brody Briggs double that plated another run, bringing things to 6-4.
Seventh Inning
Carlon continued dominating on the mound, collecting two more strikeouts and pitching another scoreless frame.
Tobias doubled with two-outs, getting into scoring position, but a groundout from Compton ended the inning with the ASU still holding on to a two-run lead.
Eighth Inning
Carlon toed the rubber yet again, remaining the storyline of the contest with another perfect inning. The lefty picked up another two strikeouts to bring his total to a career-high 10, and more importantly a zero on the board for Arizona.
The Sun Devils added some much needed insurance runs as Kien Vu brought home King to make it 7-4. Briggs followed suit with a perfectly executed bunt that scored Jackson on an Arizona throwing error. The Devils went on top 8-4 after eight innings of play.
Ninth Inning
Lucas Kelly took the mound for the Sun Devils, looking to close out the win for the Sun Devils. He did just that, working around two singles to put up a scoreless inning and preserve the 8-4 win for Arizona State.