ASU Baseball: Devils Bullpen Struggles in a 10-4 loss to #7 Cal State Fullerton

The ASU Baseball team dropped their third straight to No. 7 Cal State Fullerton 10-4.

Starting on the mound for ASU baseball was junior Ryan Hignst. He allowed just a single run on one hit in his 3 and 1/3 innings of work.

His weak spot Tuesday night was his location, Hingst allowed three walks, including hitting two batters, while throwing 24 balls on just 55 pitches.

Hingst normally comes out of the bullpen, as he did twice this weekend. But he got the start on Tuesday for a “bullpen day”, in which the coaches didn’t expect him to go deep, but just needed a few solid innings out of him to hand off to the bullpen.

“He’s had really good performances out of the pen with a good fastball,” Head Coach Tracy Smith said, “I told him . . . don’t try to treat it as a starter mentality and save yourself, because your going to be back in the bullpen.”

Walks were an issue all night for the Devils, giving up eight total, and many of them came at the beginning of innings, providing a “jumpstart” for the Titans offense.

“It seems like you’re around the zone, we’re around the zone, and you go out and four pitch walk,” Smith said, “that’s just confidence and execution.”

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Hingst would be the first of seven pitchers that came into the game for ASU. After the third inning, the Titans would score in each of the next four innings.

Fullerton finally took the lead in the seventh, as Alec Marsh gave up two runs. Those runners belonged to James Ryan, as ASU had trouble getting out of innings and finding the bullpen piece that could stop the bleeding continued.

The Titans broke it open in the ninth after Gavin Alston gave up back-to-back triples in a four run inning

Cal State Fullerton took a different approach to their bullpen, throwing just two guys out of the pen after the starter gave up four runs in as many innings.

That starter was a big left-hander, John Gavin, who has been stellar this season, coming in with a 0.68 ERA. His ERA went up to 2.60, as ASU was able to get to him early, tallying four hits and two runs in the first inning alone.

Gavin is normally a weekend starter, but with Cal State Fullerton having their game rained out on Sunday, his start got pushed back until Tuesday.

The Devils jumped out to a 2-0 lead after RBI singles from red-hot Lyle Lin and Carter Aldrete. The inning could have been much better, but a Jeremy McCuin fly out left the bases loaded.

ASU would add only two more runs in the game as Myles Denson and Andrew Shaps both brought home a runner in the fourth. After that the Devils simply had trouble-putting men on base, only recording three hits after the fourth.

“He’s preseason All Pac-12 for a reason because he’s a good player,” Smith said about CF Andrew Shaps, “We don’t worry about him, he’s done it at this level, he’s pretty consistent, he’s gonna give you good offense and good defense.”

Although it has been three straight losses, Skip is still pleased with the way the Devils are coming to the plate.

“I think our offensive approach for the most part has been pretty good,” Smith said, “That was a tough left-hander they threw out there.”

The struggles that Smith and everyone else is seeing is on the field, whether it be errors, pitching mistakes or just sloppy play. Against the high-caliber teams that ASU is playing, they can’t let their mistakes lose them games or series.

“We jumpstarted their innings with walks, we jumpstarted their innings with errors, we don’t catch pop-ups,” Smith said of his teams mistakes, “We’re not a bad baseball team, we’re playing bad baseball.”

Tomorrow the Devils will look to even the series in what will be another “bullpen day”.

Next: ASU Baseball: Sun Devils Lose Series to Loyola Marymount

“It’s going to have to be, we don’t have two mid-week starters right now,” Smith said, “Right now we plan on (Fitz) Stadler starting right now.”