Baseball picks up 10-5 win over Arizona
Thanks to some clutch hitting by Deven Marrero and Matt Newman, Arizona State beat the Arizona Wildcats 10-5 on Tuesday night in Tucson. With the non-conference win, Arizona State improves to 22-6 on the year.
After Arizona scored an unearned run of starter Kyle Ottoson in the first, the Sun Devil offense came alive. Newman got things started in the second, blasting a two-run home run to right field, his fourth of the season. It gave ASU a 2-1 lead. They would make it 6-1 in the top of the fourth. Newman started things with a sac fly that scored Marrero, then a Johnny Ruettiger infield single brought home Austin Barnes. A Zack MacPhee single would score Andy Workman and Brandon Magee to give the Devils a five run cushion.
The cushion would grow smaller in the bottom of the inning, as the Wildcats scored three times Ottoson to narrow the gap to 6-4. Ottoson lasted 3.2 innings, allowing four runs, three earned, on three hits. He walked two and hit three before giving way to Mark Lambson.
Alex Blackford relieved Lambson in the fifth, throwing three solid innings to earn the win and go to 3-0 on the year. He allowed two hits and struck out one. Trevor Williams and Mitchell Lambson threw the final two innings.
The Devils would push the lead back up in the fifth, scoring twice to make it 8-4. A fielder's choice by Newman brought home a run, as did a Workman sacrifice fly. Arizona State would add a run in the eighth on a MacPhee RBI ground out and another in the ninth on an Andrew Aplin RBI single. Arizona would score a run in the ninth, but it wasn't enough, as the Sun Devils closed out the Wildcats for the victory.
Deven Marrero set career highs with his four hits and four runs scored, while Matt Newman drove in four runs for ASU. Johnny Ruettiger, Zack MacPhee and Andy Workman each had two hits in the victory. With the win, Arizona State earns the point for baseball in the State Farm Territorial Cup Series.
The Sun Devils now travel to Oregon State for a three-game series with the Beavers in Corvallis that gets underway Friday night.