ASU baseball picked up their first series win of the season Saturday as starter Eli Lingos shut down the Oklahoma State lineup for a 14-2 Sun Devil win.
After two underwhelming weekends to begin their season, Sun Devil baseball appeared to remain in the yearlong funk of 2016. Perhaps all ASU needed was a return from the same team that beat them 18-4 a season ago, and return the favor.
Arizona State dominated Oklahoma State by a score of 14-2 as ASU’s offense broke through for seven runs in the fifth inning putting the game to bed.
Hunter Bishop hit a big two-run double in the fifth driving the ball all the way to the warning track in left field, a step in the right direction as he entered the game with a .121 batting average.
Gage Canning also hit two triples, giving him five already with lots of baseball left to play.
The offense has woken up from its early season slumber, and has given the Cowboys pitching fits in the first two games of the series.
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“Hitting’s contagious,” said ASU head coach Tracy Smith. “I thought we did a good job of just team execution, moving guys up when you’re supposed to situational hitting. It’s good to see the offense catch fire a little bit.”
“We know our offense can do this, we haven’t really seen it until this point,” Canning said. “It takes a little bit of stress off the pitching. It works both ways, and it boosts our confidence.”
The star of the night was Eli Lingos. The senior proved that he’s able to take the ball in the big games, as he threw 5 2/3 innings, with one earned run and tied his career-high with seven strikeouts.
Lingos dominated early, facing the minimum through the first five innings. Lingos did a great job of establishing all of his pitches to all quadrants of the strike zone.
“If he gets the changeup going early, he’s going to be really effective against these guys and he did,” Smith said. “The thing is we talked about it here numerous times you just kind of look up in the fifth or sixth and Eli is still probably going to be out there.”
“Early on, my first couple hitters I was going way too slow and that’s what cost my command on the first hitter,” Lingos said. “A little thing like that, pick up tempo that wasn’t noticed last year that could kind of take that start that goes from getting a double play ball to a couple runners on.”
Connor Higgins came in and threw two strong innings for ASU, allowing one run and striking out one with the game already long decided.
Higgins, like many of his teammates, started slow out the gates with an ERA north of 10.
Getting Higgins to settle in and provide stability for the bullpen could decide how far the Sun Devils go in 2018.
Next: ASU Baseball: Romero dazzles as Sun Devils take down Oklahoma State
Arizona State returns to the diamond seeking a sweep Sunday afternoon at 12:30 p.m. MT against the Cowboys. Boyd Vander Kooi is scheduled to start the series finale, who has had excellent results to begin his collegiate career including a 0.61 ERA in 14 2/3 innings. The game can be seen on the Pac-12 Network.