ASU baseball starting pitcher Spencer Van Scoyoc struggled with his command Friday night as the St. Mary’s took the first game 6-1.
The saying that walks tend to score is undefeated. Arizona State pitcher Spencer Van Scoyoc learned the lesson tonight, and has for most of his tenure in Tempe. Arizona State baseball fell to the St. Mary’s Gaels by a score of 6-1.
In a cold, forgettable night for the Sun Devils, they fell below .500 at the hands of a solid mid-major team. Sure, the Gaels played well but this was a series Arizona State was expected to win without relative difficulty. The Gaels left 11 runners on base, and still won comfortably.
Van Scoyoc walked four batters and hit one in a game where he was on the ropes from the beginning, giving up a leadoff double to Joey Fiske.
His audition as ASU’s Friday night starter won’t last much longer if the trend continues. In 7 1/3 innings this season Van Scoyoc has walked 10 batters, an extremely high number that is an ugly blemish on a talented left-handed arm.
“At this level of baseball, you can’t construct innings for other teams. The margin of error, in particular with a young team is really, really small when we’re giving free bases,” said head coach Tracy Smith. “This is a results oriented business, you got to do the job, players, coaches, everybody. Are we giving up on Spencer Van Scoyoc? Absolutely not, that young man is going to have to have a big role for us to be good this year.
The Sun Devils also showed little success in the batter’s box. Most of the credit goes to St. Mary’s starter Nick Frank who threw 7 1/3 marvelous innings allowing only one earned run and striking out nine ASU hitters.
“He made our guys look like high school guys,” said Smith. “We just didn’t give ourselves a chance tonight, but that can not be an excuse (for) how you approach your AB’s. I say a combination of our lack of success offensively was our approach but also their guy was doing a pretty good job.”
Hunter Bishop, a bat the Sun Devils will need to rely on is hitting .105 after five games and looks lost searching for positive signs at the plate.
Spencer Torkelson has mammoth power, but the strikeouts that come with the all-or-nothing approach loom larger in games when the team is dismantled.
Minus Lyle Lin and Gage Canning, ASU went a combined 1-for-23 at the plate and were seemingly always behind in the count. ASU’s run into two great Friday starters to begin the season, and the road won’t get any easier when conference play begins.
Next: ASU Baseball: Sun Devils look to clean up defense
Eli Lingos will start for the Sun Devils tomorrow in the second game of the weekend series. First pitch will be 1:00 p.m. Arizona time and can be seen on the ASU Live Stream.