Despite senior catcher Beau Sylvester having his best outing in an Arizona uniform, a career-high four hits, going 4-for-4 including a double, RBI, three singles and a run, it wasn’t enough to overcome an experienced Sun Devil team as Arizona State notched a 6-4 win over Arizona on Thursday night in Hi Corbett Field.
“They are a very good team,” Arizona coach Chip Hale said of Arizona State. “They’re very experienced, guys with a lot of college at-bats, and it shows.”
Junior right-hander Owen Kramkowski of Walden Grove had a solid night on the mound working 6 1/3 innings with five strike outs. He allowed nine hits and five runs (four earned). Two of those runs came after he was replaced by Patrick Morris with the game tied at 3 and two on for Arizona State.
Morris faced three batters and three runs came in during his time on the mound before he was replaced by Corey Kling.
Kling pitched 2 2/3 scoreless innings, allowing just one hit.
On offense, in addition to Sylvester’s four hits, Tony Lira went 3 for 5, including a double, had one run and one RBI.
Carson McEntire went 1-for-2 including a two RBI double that evened the score at two in the bottom of the second inning. He was walked twice.
Mathis Meurant had one hit that resulted in a game tying RBI in the sixth inning. Meurant made a stellar play on defense at shortstop in the eighth. On a hard hit ball to second, Meurant laid out to grab the ball, quickly gained his footing and sent a perfect throw to first to get the batter out.
“There was a lot of good things,” Hale said. “Kramkowski was fantastic. Kling did a great job of coming in and keeping it where it was. On the offensive side, Lira with the three hits … Sylvester was fantastic. There were some good things, but again, we’re just not quite there.”
With Arizona State (22-8, 6-4 Big 12) leading 6-3 going into the bottom of the seventh, Arizona got a run back when Lira doubled, Nate Novitske walked and Sylvester knocked a double down the left field line to bring Lira home.
The Wildcats (9-20, 2-8) seemed to be on the edge of breaking through most of the game but a major issue on offense for Arizona most of the season showed up again on Thursday night — Arizona couldn’t get that extra hit to get runners in scoring position home.
“It just feels like that a lot,” Hale said. “We’ve been on the edge, we are just on the wrong edge right now.”
Arizona stranded 12 runners and struck out 11 times while Arizona State stranded nine and struck out five times.
“We are just a little more passive and we have to find a way to get a little more aggressive and kind of let our true ability come out,” Hale said, “What is ability? Its potential minus distractions. We’ve got some distractions in our way right now, whether its mentally, some guys hurting a little bit, but most of it gets in your head and once we get those out of our mind, I think we’ll be a better team. We are very close.
“They are hurting. It’s a mental game and we have to do as good as job as we can just to clear their minds every day and let them play free. The more free we’re able to play I think the better we’re gonna be.”
Arizona is on a five-game losing streak and has lost 20 games on the season.
On putting this loss behind them and facing Arizona State again on Friday, Hale said, “We’ll have a good pregame tomorrow and we’ll be ready to go.”
Arizona and Arizona State will meet up for the second game of the rivalry series on Friday at 6 p.m.
The Arizona Football team will sign autographs from 5 to 6 p.m. on the concourse inside Hi Corbett. Noah Fifita will throw out the first pitch and the team will bring the Territorial Cup trophy to display as they are recognized during the game.
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