IRVINE, Calif. --- UC Irvine and Arizona State opened a two-game midweek set in grind-it-out fashion as the Anteaters came back to creep by for a 4-3 win Tuesday night at Anteater Ballpark.
DOUBLE TROUBLE
The Sun Devils (5-8) entered the game as one of the nation's leaders in doubles and got to work early on that with two in the first three batters. Sean McLain floated a ball to left field that he legged out for two bases, and then a pop fly to center field turned into a double when
Nathan Church slipped on his approach allowing the ball to drop in putting two runners on base.
The inning progressed with both runners coming home, first from a wild pitch, and the second with a well-orchestrated double steal that allowing Ethan Long to touch home before the final out could be made on the bases putting ASU up, 2-0.
GAINING GROUND
The Anteaters (7-5) found a way to get back in the game starting their second inning with a double of their own from
Thomas McCaffrey. He would be shut down on the bases paths trying to score on a comeback for the second out of the inning. Much like ASU, the 'Eaters would still find a way to manufacture a run forcing Sun Devil starter Tyler Meyer to walk the next three hitters including
Taishi Nakawake with the bases loaded to make it a 2-1 ballgame.
ASU got that run back in the fourth on a sacrifice fly, but UCI was cooking in the bottom of the inning loading the bases with their first three hitters. Meyer battled back to strike out the next two hitters, and had
Jacob Castro to two strikes, but the two-out extraordinaire came through lining a ball the opposite way and inches fair into the corner to tie things up, 3-3, after four innings.
BULLPEN DEPENDENT
Michael Stanford put up a solid outing going his longest, 3.1 innings, with two of his three runs could have been unearned. He turned it over to the pen who had his back starting with
Nick Rincover limiting damage in his two-thirds of an inning.
Andre Antone also got into a little trouble, but also pitched scoreless ball; even playing defense starting a 1-6-3 double play ball, and his final out of the game covering home on a wild pitch to nail a runner attempting to score from second base.
Troy Wentworth was the fourth Anteater pitcher and after getting the final out of the sixth, sat down two more in the seventh.
The 'Eaters meanwhile would take their first lead of the night in the bottom half of the sixth. Nakawake again got things going with a single, and would get to third when substitute
Luke Spillane shot a ball through the second baseman to put runners on the corners with nobody out.
Nathan Church would ground a ball just enough to score Nakawake to make it 4-3, Anteaters.
FINAL SCORE: UC IRVINE 4, ARIZONA STATE 3
The rest of the game was in
Troy Taylor's hands as he finished the 5.2 scoreless innings of relief with 2.1 of his own. He started shaky allowing the first three baserunners to reach with two outs in the seventh, but got the big out when he needed it to stop the threat. A flawless eighth inning led to the ninth, and despite a two-out single and stolen base, struck out the final hitter to secure the win and earn his first save as an 'Eaters.
Wentworth was the beneficiary of his first career win as an Anteater, and he joined all five pitchers in recording a strikeout on the night for 10 as a staff.
Castro had two of the four Anteater RBIs. The bottom three hitters of the order reached base eight times in 12 appearances with Nakawake and
Justin Torres each registering a walk and two singles and
Caden Kendle walking twice as all three scored on the night.
ASU's offense mashed 11 hits including seven from the 2-3 hitters McLain and Ethan Long and just one of their three runs batted in.
The sides play once more on Wednesday with a 6:00 p.m. first pitch
Thoughts from Head Coach Ben Orloff
"You give up three runs on a midweek against a team that's got some really good offensive players throwing five different guys. Especially after how that first inning started, to only give up three, I think we pitched really good on the mound. Troy Taylor is unbelievable; kind of what he can mean for us going forward and you got to see that tonight - he was awesome."
"We go 5.2 scoreless out of the pen with four different guys, that's a big time performance."
"The point of offense is to win, the point is not to score seven or get 18 hits, the point is to win. I think we did enough to win today. I think we had a lot of really good production with two strikes - you think about Spillane with a two-strike hit, Castro with the two-strike, two-RBI double, Torres with two two-strike hits, Taishi with a two-strike hit - we had a lot of really good production with two strikes."
