ASU Baseball Wins with Back-to-Back Shutouts

Arizona State took care of business against the Long Beach on Saturday's double header and the pitchers threw 18 innings of shutout ball. Not to mention, ASU only allowed five total hits and they did not commit an error in nearly six hours of game time.

Friday night's game was postponed after a two hour and fifteen minute delay and ace Trevor William three a complete game, three hit shutout in route to a 4-0 victory against the Dirtbags.

"I mean I didn't throw too much last night (during the rain delay) so my arm was ok for today... last year [Long Beach State] put up a good fight and this year we were expecting the same thing," Williams said.

Williams had six 1-2-3 innings in the complete game to improve to 3-0 on the season with a 0.90 ERA. He also struck out five batters, walked one and hit two LBSU batters.

The Sun Devils opened up the offense in the first inning with a James McDonald RBI double, scoring Drew Stankiewicz. Fast forward to the bottom of the sixth inning when McDonald blasted a 380-foot home run to straight away right field to put the Sun Devils up by two.

To lead off the seventh inning, Sun Devils Michael Benjamin and Jake Peevyhouse hit back to back triples and then David Graybill hit a deep fly ball to the left field warning track to score ASU's fourth and final run of the game.

Game two was a similar story as Ryan Kellogg pitched a career high seven innings and gave up just two hits.

"Kellogg has been great all year and he has been very solid for us and I think he has stepped into the role greatly and I think there are some great things for him to come," Williams said.

"I just wanted to come out and repeat what Trevor Williams had done," Kellogg said following his third win of the season.

The freshman lefty has a 0.82 ERA and is second on the team with 22 innings pitched and 18 strikeouts.

The offense got rolling in the third inning when Stankiewicz hit an RBI single to right field to score David Graybill and then catcher Max Rossiter grounded into a double play, but Kasey Coffman scored. Coffman had an RBI and scored again in the eighth inning.

According to Coffman, "we just stayed in a groove all game, in both games."

Trever Allen hit his team-leading fourth home run of the game to lead off the fourth inning and two batters later third baseman Michael Benjamin extended his hitting steak to 11 games with a single between the shortstop and third baseman.

"From an offensive stand point, you can tell he's just a mature hitter. He's adjusted his game and some things he did during his freshman year he is no longer doing anymore so the scouting report is constantly changing," head coach Tim Esmay said.

Freshman infielder Dalton DiNatale hit his first career RBI in a pinch-hit situation in the eighth inning to make the game 4-0. ASU scored two more runs that inning to secure the 6-0 victory.

"The thing that I have been proud of our guys is it seems like we have the ability to score runs late, which is a huge thing. You know we've hung in there and our pitching has kept us in some games," Esmay said.

With Pac-12 games creeping around the corner, the Sun Devils have to begin to prepare themselves for conference play.

"I mean the Pac-12 can be won by anyone in any year. I mean last year we almost had a three-way tie for firs place so it's anyone's ballgame any weekend. It's going to come down to the last weekend like it always does," Williams said.

Coffman followed that comment by saying "I agree with that. I like our chances though. We have a good team this year."

Arizona State (9-2-1) seeks its tenth win of the season and first series sweep of the year against Long Beach State (6-9) Sunday afternoon at 12:30 p.m. Pacific time.