ASU Baseball: Sun Devils open weekday series against Cal State Fullerton
By Alec Henden
After a 2-4 road trip at UCLA and Washington State, ASU baseball returns to Phoenix Tuesday to begin a two-game series against Cal State Fullerton.
Winning road series in the Pac-12 are never easy. Coming off of a tough series loss to Washington State in Pullman, the Sun Devils welcome to Phoenix Municipal Stadium Cal State Fullerton.
Fullerton is a traditional baseball power, but have fallen on tough times to begin 2018 as they sit at 10-15 and 1-2 in the Big West.
Arizona State comes off Eli Lingos’s consecutive dominant performances including a shutout of the Cougars on Sunday afternoon. The senior has compiled impressive statistics with 2.02 ERA, striking out 44 batters and an impressive .229 batting average against.
Head coach Tracy Smith has stayed consistent in wanting Lingos in the Sunday starter spot, but if Lingos continues to pitch at this level look for him to receive looks on Friday or Saturday.
The Sun Devil offense continues to run through freshman sensation Spencer Torkelson recently broke Barry Bonds’s freshman home run record of 12.
Torkelson has done a tremendous job of stabilizing the middle of the Sun Devil order by providing power as well as patient at-bats making the pitchers work harder to get him out.
The Sun Devils are also receiving strong offensive support from freshman infielder Gage Workman, who has put up an impressive .287 batting average and has shown a strong ability to get timely hits.
For the Titans, senior outfielder Chris Prescott is the player to watch at the dish. Prescott is hitting .310 with an impressive .403 on base percentage for the light hitting Titans.
The Titans don’t hit the ball very well with a team average of only .242, but they are more patient than other teams’s in the country with an on-base percentage of .330.
Next: ASU Baseball: Lingos’ complete game shutout helps salvage series vs. WSU
Tuesday and Wednesday’s games will start at 6:30 p.m. PT and both games can be seen on Pac-12 Network. The Sun Devils will then return to Pac-12 play for a weekend series against the USC Trojans.