ASU Baseball: Sun Devils annihilate Oregon behind dominant offensive performance

ASU baseball dominated game two of the series against Oregon Saturday as the Sun Devil offense put up season-highs in runs and hits.

The Devils won the game 18-4 stringing together 22 hits, their most since 2010. Nine different Sun Devils had hits, and nine different Devils had RBIs.

Gage Canning continued his fantastic season, going 5-for-5 while reaching base in all six of his plate appearances. He is now hitting .506 for the year.

Canning hit his first two home runs of the season with one of his homers being an inside-the-park home run, becoming the first Sun Devil since 2012 to hit one.

He also hit his eighth triple of the season and drove in four runs. He now has 20 RBIs while batting in the lead-off spot.

Head coach Tracy Smith said that Gage is showing “consistency at the highest level.”

The Sun Devils jumped on Oregon starter James Acuna from the first batter. Canning led off the bottom of the first with a single. Four hits later, ASU held a 4-0 lead after one.

On Friday, ASU started quickly as well, scoring two in the first to go up early. But, the Devils didn’t score again until the eighth inning. They trailed throughout the majority of the game until a Canning triple scored three and gave ASU the lead in the eighth.

On Saturday though, ASU kept the pressure going. They tacked on two more runs in the second inning, chasing Acuna out of the game after just 1.1 innings pitched.

But the Devils were far from done as they scored four in the third inning and two in the fourth.

The 12 runs for ASU after the fourth inning were double the amount they scored for the entire series last season when these two teams faced off in Eugene.

The Devils scored one in the fifth and five in the sixth frame to extend their lead to 18-0.

Spencer Torkelson blasted his 10th home run of the season when he hit a three-run homer in the sixth inning and is now just one away from tying Barry Bonds for the most home runs by an ASU freshmen and we are just 19 games in.

Boyd Vander Kooi started on the hill and was his excellent self. Coming into Saturday, he had a 1.33 ERA. He lowered that ERA to 1.07 after holding the Ducks scoreless through five innings of work. He only allowed one hit.

He has gone at least five innings deep in all four of his starts and this was the second time that he did not give up a run.

Next: ASU Baseball: Sam Romero’s solid start solidifies rotation

Arizona State improves to 10-9 on the season while Oregon drops to 12-6. The Devils will look to complete the sweep on Sunday at 12:30 p.m. PT in Phoenix.

All quotes in this article were obtained firsthand by Devils in Detail unless otherwise noted.