ASU’s struggles with RISP loom large in series loss to Oklahoma State

May 13, 2025 felt like the night Arizona State had finally arrived.

The Sun Devils entered the final weekend of the regular season riding four straight series wins and fresh off a 17-7 mercy-rule demolition of GCU. Under head coach Willie Bloomquist, ASU had yet to reach an NCAA Tournament, but with the Sun Devils near the top of the Big 12 standings, the drought looked ready to end.

All they had to do was avoid a collapse.

Instead, everything unraveled.

Oklahoma State swept ASU in Stillwater, knocking the Sun Devils out of a conference bye and sending them spiraling into a first-round exit in the Big 12 tournament. ASU barely snuck into the NCAA Tournament before getting overwhelmed in a difficult UCLA Regional.

Nearly one year later, Oklahoma State arrived in Phoenix with ASU once again fighting to keep its season on track. The expectation was that last year’s collapse would harden the Sun Devils for this moment. Through two games, it looks like they learned little from it.

Less than 24 hours after coughing up a 6-3 ninth-inning lead Friday night, ASU watched another game slip away Saturday in a 13-6 loss that handed Oklahoma State the series victory. The Cowboys crushed seven home runs, including four during a devastating six-run fourth inning that buried ASU before the game ever settled in. The Sun Devils answered with 14 hits and two home runs from junior infielder Dominic Smaldino, but once again, the hits rarely came when they mattered.

Coming into Saturday, ASU ranked fifth nationally with a .324 batting average, a number that should make the lineup a nightmare to survive over a weekend series. Instead, the Sun Devils continue to be undone by the same problem that has lingered all season: timely hitting.

The offense produces traffic constantly. It just too often leaves it stranded.

The issue stretches back months. In ASU’s March Amergy series sweep against SEC competition, the Sun Devils went just 2-for-17 with runners in scoring position across the weekend. Two months later, with the season entering its final stretch, the problem remains unchanged. Saturday became the clearest example yet.

“We are giving them every tool possible to be successful, and diligence and work ethic have never been a problem with this group,” Bloomquist said. “I just believe in those moments, guys want to do it so bad that they lose focus on what it takes to get it done, versus just, I want to get it done…But it’s not from a lack of effort and a lack of what we’re trying to do.”

In the first inning, ASU loaded the bases with nobody out, only for sophomore infielder Austen Roellig to pop out before junior infielder Garrett Michel grounded into a double play.

An inning later, the Sun Devils loaded the bases again. This time, junior infielder Nu’u Contrades ended the threat immediately, bouncing into another inning-ending double play on the first pitch he saw.

The fourth inning brought more of the same. Bases loaded again. One out again. Graduate outfielder Dean Toigo rolled into yet another double play.

“I think we had a chance to really set the tone early,” Bloomquist said. “Bases loaded, nobody out in the first. Bases loaded, one out in the second. I think bases loaded again in the third. We had a whole slew of runners after that, and we just weren’t able to, once again, come up with big hits to put up crooked numbers early on and really set a tone.”

By the seventh inning, the pattern had become impossible to ignore. Down 8-3, ASU loaded the bases for a fourth time, but sophomore outfielder Landon Hairston grounded out to end the inning. Hairston, whose power surge during March and April made him one of the hottest hitters in the country, is now just 8-for-30 over his last stretch without an extra-base hit.

ASU finished 1-for-13 with runners in scoring position and 0-for-6 with the bases loaded. The Sun Devils piled up baserunners all afternoon but turned almost none of them into meaningful damage.

For stretches, Smaldino tried to keep ASU alive himself. He launched a solo homer in the second inning, then followed it with a two-run blast later in the game for his 10th and 11th home runs of the season. Each swing briefly gave ASU life. Oklahoma State’s power quickly erased it.

Junior right-hander Jaden Alba earned his second straight Saturday start despite an inconsistent season that has seen his ERA hover around six. Early on, Alba looked sharp, striking out three through two scoreless innings before everything unraveled in the third and fourth.

Oklahoma State capitalized immediately once traffic reached the bases. A single and double set up sophomore infielder Brock Thompson, whose two-out bloop fell just beyond a diving junior outfielder Sam Myers to drive in two runs.

Then came the fourth inning barrage. Alba surrendered three home runs in four batters, two with two outs. Even after Bloomquist turned to the bullpen, the damage continued as sophomore pitcher Taylor Penn allowed a two-run blast from senior infielder Aidan Meola, the Cowboys’ fourth homer of the inning.

“They got pitches to hit, and they didn’t miss,” Bloomquist said. “Those guys hit the ball out of the ballpark. The ball is carrying tonight again, wind blowing out, ball jumping, and there were a couple of fly balls that carried out…And when we fall behind hitters, against good hitters, they don’t miss, and then they’re going to punish us.”

ASU briefly stabilized the game from there, but the offense continued wasting opportunities until Oklahoma State finally buried the Sun Devils for good in the eighth. Freshman outfielder Danny Wallace launched the Cowboys’ fifth home run during a three-run frame, before senior first baseman Colin Brueggemann and junior outfielder Alex Conover added two more long balls in the ninth to cap a seven-homer avalanche.

For much of the season, ASU had given itself a strong postseason outlook because of its conference success, even while damaging midweek losses to UNLV, New Mexico State and Arizona dragged its RPI into the 40s despite a top-20 D1baseball ranking.

Now the margin is shrinking again.

The Sun Devils are sliding in the Big 12 standings while their postseason resume continues to weaken. Without a turnaround Sunday to avoid a sweep, followed by a strong finish against Houston next weekend, ASU risks falling into the same late-season spiral that derailed last year’s team, once again at the hands of Oklahoma State.

“Playoff baseball starts tomorrow,” Bloomquist said. “We’re in that position where every game is a playoff game, and we have to start playing as such. We have no more cushion, we have no more leeway. We have to lock in and focus better than we’re doing right now, because it’s not good enough. So we just got to be better.”