Baseball reaches 40-win mark after sweeping Oregon

The No. 2 Arizona State University baseball team defeated Oregon 10-2 on Saturday to reach the 40-win mark for the third straight season and sixth time in the last seven years. A crowd of 3,415 at Winkles Field-Packard Stadium at Brock Ballpark saw the Sun Devils move to 40-11 overall, 18-5 in the Pac-10, with the victory. It is the 30th time in program history that ASU has won 40 or more games.

Carlos Ramirez had three hits and hit his team-leading 16th home run of the season to lead the Sun Devil offense. Kole Calhoun and Riccio TorrezAbe Ruiz had a three-run triple. also had home runs, while

Jordan Swagerty started and went 6.2 innings on the mound, allowing eight hits and two earned runs while striking out a career-high eight to earn the win and improve to 3-1 on the season. Mitchell Lambson finished the game out of the bullpen, striking out five over the final 2.1 innings.

The Sun Devils got on the board early with three runs in the first, as Calhoun grounded out to bring in a run and Riccio Torrez then followed with a two-run homer over the scoreboard in left center. In the third, Ramirez scored on an Oregon throwing error to make it 4-0.

ASU broke the game open with three runs each in the fifth and sixth innings. Ramirez and Calhoun hit back-to-back home runs, doing so for the third time in the past four games, and Zack MacPhee scored on a wild pitch in the fifth. Then, in the sixth, Ruiz ripped a bases-loaded triple down the right field line to bring in three runs.

Oregon scored two in the seventh off Swagerty, bringing ASU's shutout streak of 26 innings to an end. However, Lambson came on to get the final out of the inning and then kept the Ducks off the scoreboard over the last two innings to secure the victory.

The Sun Devils will complete their three-game series with Oregon on Sunday, with first pitch scheduled for 1 p.m. at Winkles Field-Packard Stadium at Brock Ballpark.