ASU drops midweek to UNLV after late push falls short

A tale of two midweek nights, both in Phoenix, separated by less than a day and everything else.

On Tuesday, the Sun Devils turned Brazell Field into a launching pad. Six home runs cut through the night. A seven-run comeback flipped the game completely. A grand slam erased the deficit, then a late shot delivered the lead. The dugout surged, the noise built, and the moment felt real. It looked like a team catching fire.

Wednesday told a different story, even if the ending tried to echo the night before.

Back home at Phoenix Municipal Stadium, ASU never found its footing early against UNLV. The swings lacked conviction. The execution slipped in routine spots. Any rhythm from Tuesday was missing as UNLV built its advantage with back-to-back innings of two runs, then three, forcing ASU to chase the game instead of control it.

Fatigue crept in as a possible culprit, five games in seven days and eleven in seventeen, or maybe it was simpler than that, a flat start that took hold from the first pitch and put ASU behind early. 

Either way, the Sun Devils spent the night trying to climb out of a hole. The push came late, trimming the deficit to one and echoing the comeback from the night before, but this time there was no finish. ASU (24-10, 7-5 Big 12) managed eight hits and five runs, yet could not close it out, falling 6-5 to UNLV (19-14), 24 hours after completing a comeback that felt inevitable, this one slipping away just short.

It took until the seventh inning for ASU to record its fifth hit and third run of the game, a late arrival that underscored the tone of the night. UNLV didn’t overwhelm the ASU, but instead outlasted them, doing just enough on an off night while shutting down a final comeback push after ASU showed signs of life in the back third of the game.

Even then, the rally never fully formed. ASU finished 1-for-12 with runners in scoring position and 4-for-18 with runners on base, numbers that mirrored recurring issues that have lingered all season. 

“Came out a little bit flat again for the second day in a row until about the fifth or sixth inning before we started playing with a little bit more energy, and it just wasn’t enough,” head coach Willie Bloomquist said. “Offensively, just didn’t come with that mindset that I like to see out of our guys.”

Even in Tuesday’s 12-8 win over GCU, the Sun Devils went 2-for-11 with runners in scoring position, scoring all 12 runs via home runs. This time, with zero homers, the difference was immediate. ASU absorbed early punches and spent much of the night without an answer.

Freshman right-hander Austin Musso made his first career start in a stretch that requires innings across a second straight midweek game and a four-game weekend ahead. He held his own early, striking out four and using a sharp slider to keep hitters off balance over three innings while allowing just one walk.

“I thought Austin threw the ball outstanding and got us off to a decent start there,” Bloomquist said. “He gave up the two-run homer, but we knew (UNLV) can swing the bats a little bit… We wanted to get Austin on the mound, and he’s a big part of our future and a big part of our season this year.”

A two-run home run in the third, however, shifted the game and gave UNLV a lead it would not surrender.

Junior right-hander Josh Butler took over in the fourth, but the inning unraveled quickly. A double, a hit by pitch, and an RBI single opened the frame. An error on a sharply hit ball that slipped between sophomore infielder Beckett Zavorek’s legs and into the outfield allowed two more runs to score. A passed ball in the fifth added another as UNLV built a 6-1 advantage while ASU’s offense remained quiet.

The deficit was not unfamiliar. The night before against GCU, ASU had fallen behind 7-0 and methodically chipped away until it completed a comeback and pulled ahead. This time, the response never reached that level. The Sun Devils never fully closed the gap or showed sustained pressure to suggest a similar turnaround was coming.

ASU did scratch across a second run in the fifth on an RBI groundout from graduate outfielder Dean Toigo, scoring sophomore outfielder Landon Hairston after his double extended his extra-base hit streak to 10 games. Still, the moment never built into momentum.

The seventh inning provided the clearest opportunity. After sophomore catcher Brody Briggs walked and Zavorek reached on a fielder’s choice, Hairston delivered a double to left that sent Zavorek home from first and advanced Hairston to third. Junior infielder PJ Moutzouridis followed with a walk, and Hairston scored on a passed ball to trim the deficit.

With a chance to stack hits and sustain the rally, ASU came up empty. Toigo struck out, and junior infielder Dominic Smaldino flew out, halting the surge before it could take hold.

“I think the dugout finally woke up after we were down six,” Bloomquist said. “All right, guys, let’s go. We’ve got to start getting going and start putting together some better at-bats. But again, too little too late. The message with these guys (after the game) was just, you can’t show up in the sixth and expect to win. You’ve got to show up from the first pitch.”

A similar window appeared in the eighth. Junior outfielder Dominic Longo snapped a seven-game hitless streak with an RBI double that scored graduate outfielder Matt Polk from first. But the inning ended just as quickly, as ASU followed with back-to-back strikeouts to end the threat, their last meaningful push of the night.

Despite the long stretch of games and the possible toll of taxing the team, Bloomquist remains firm that this group must push through it.

“We can make all the excuses we want to say it’s a lot of baseball in a short amount of time, but everybody else is doing it too,” Bloomquist said. “So grow up a little bit, take the diapers off and if guys want to be professional players one day. This is all part of it.”