ASU Baseball: Sun Devils Take on Cougars
By Mike Slifer
Tonight, the ASU Baseball team begins their three game series with Washington State in Pullman, WA. First pitch tonight is at 6:30 pm. Tomorrow’s game starts at 4:00 and Sunday’s game is scheduled for noon. Tonight’s game will be televised by the PAC-12 Network.
This is ASU’s final series of the regular season. If they can find a way to sweep this series, or even win two out of three, they should be invited to play in an NCAA Regional next weekend. Losing this series would be a huge let-down and a momentum killer. The Sun Devils have won seven games in a row. Not only that, but losing this final series to an average Washington State team could sway some members of the selection committee to take a pass on ASU.
Tonight’s starter will likely be Brett Lilek. He has been solid lately, but not as sharp as he can be. The same can be said for clutch hitter RJ Ybarra. He has come up big for ASU as a situational hitter, but looked out of sorts on Tuesday night against Abilene Christian. Hopefully, he’s not heading into a slump.
But sports reporters and writers are critical about every little thing. Nit-picking a play here or a decision there. The reality is that this ASU team is hot right now and playing with a lot of confidence. They’re in the perfect place, mentally. They are the hunters right now. And Coach Esmay needs to keep them hungry in that regard. Even though they may be favored for this particular series, they need to focus and bring their “A game” if they want to insure that they aren’t having their end of the year banquet next weekend instead of playing post-season baseball.