The Long Beach State baseball team let a solid outing from pitcher Shawn Stuart go to waste, losing to the No. 10-ranked Arizona State Sun Devils (9-3) 3-2 in twelve innings Friday night at Blair Field.
The loss is the Dirtbags sixth loss in one-run games this season and fifth consecutive one-run game during a weekend series dating back to Feb. 25 against Cal.
“It’s good to be apart of these [close] games but we want to win these games doing whatever it may be,” coach Troy Buckley said. “We had our chances to win the game but [we] didn’t get that hit we needed.”
Stuart pitched his best game of the year against the toughest opponent they have faced this year allowing only one earned run in nine innings pitched. Coming into the game the Sun Devils were the second-best hitting team in the nation hitting a collective.363 batting average.
“It was nice to see [Stuart] execute pitches and settle down there after the first couple of pitches,” coach Troy Buckley said.
Overall, the senior right-hander surrendered six hits and struck out five batters and walked one on 104 pitches for LBSU (4-9).
Unfortunately, ASU’s Brady Rodgers matched Stuart pitch for pitch all nine innings striking out seven Dirtbags and walking three while surrendering two earned runs.
“[Stuart and Rodgers] had good games going and [Rodgers] was on top of his game all the way,” Buckley said.
The Sun Devils retook the lead in the top of the 12th inning by way of an Andrew Aplin single to right field. ASU designated hitter James McDonald reached base on a single off of Dirtbags Eddie Magallon and moved on to second base via sacrifice bunt. Aplin then singled in McDonald with the single to right.
Arizona State had the lead through the game’s first two innings thanks to two early runs in the first two innings off of Stuart, but the Dirtbags tied the game in the fifth inning on Kellen Hoime’s single to right field.
Hoime singled in Jeff McNeil who was on second base via single and sacrifice bunt. Sun Devils right fielder Allen was unable to corral the hard hit ball to throw out McNeil.
The Dirtbags scored their first run of the game in the bottom of the second inning to cut the then-ASU lead in half. After an Ino Patron double Jeff McNeil scored Patron from third base with an RBI ground out to first base. Freshman Richard Prigatano had sacrificed Patron over to third before McNeil’s RBI.
The Patron run was the first earned run Rodgers had given up in 22 innings pitched in the 2012 season.
Arizona State scored the first runs of the game in the top of the first inning on a Joey DeMichele ground out. Sun Devils lead off hitter Andrew Aplin singled to left field to begin the game. After Stuart walked Chase Coffman to put two runners on the senior right-hander was able to strike out shortstop Deven Marrero before DeMichele drove in Aplin.
The Sun Devils half of the second inning began just as the previous had with a single, this time by catcher Max Rossiter. During the next at-bat Dirtbags catcher Kellen Hoime let a Suart pitch squeak by for a passed ball that moved Rossiter to second base. Rossiter then scored on a Trever Allen sacrifice fly to deep center field after reaching third base thanks in part to James McDonald’s ground out to first base.
From then on Stuart retired the next five batters in order before Sun Devils first baseman Abe Ruiz sent a pitch deep to right field that bounced over the wall for a ground rule double. Coming into the game Ruiz was batting .425 with three home runs and 16 RBIs.
After Ruiz’s double Stuart got the next 11 batters out before Allen led off the eighth inning with a double.
One of many bright spots for Stuart was keeping DeMichele hitless in four at-bats, striking the Sun Devil out looking in the fourth. DeMichele came in to the game as the number two hitter in the nation with a .524 batting average.
LBSU pitcher Josh Frye pitched an eventful tenth inning, but held the Dirtbags lead while giving up just two singles. Frye induced a Marrero groundball to end the inning with ASU threatening with runners on first and third base.
Magallon pitched two innings giving up two hits, including the eventual game-winner to ear his second loss of the season.