ASU Baseball: Takeaways from a trio of losses at Oregon State

Heading into this weekend's Pac-12 opening series, the Arizona State baseball team had won its last eight ballgames and was full of confidence with a record of 13-3.

That confidence was quickly taken away, however, as the Sun Devils were unable to get out of Corvallis with a single win throughout their three games up north. We break down the good, the bad, and the ugly from the series below.

Series Recap

Friday: L 3-2 (L - Martinez)

Saturday: L 12-2 (L - Lingos)

Sunday: L 7-3 (L - Todd)

3 Up

Late-game offense: The maroon and gold's bats obviously struggled all series long, but if there was a bright spot it came in the form of the team's late-game execution. After scoring a single run in both the seventh and ninth innings on Friday (to pull within one run of a tie on both occasions), Tracy Smith's club scored twice in the final frame on both Saturday and Sunday.

The late success in games two and three will likely go overlooked because of the large deficits facing the team at the time, but they did show us that the bats weren't completely dead.

Brian Serven's arm: The Arizona State catcher threw out two Oregon State runners trying to steal on Sunday, bringing his total up to 16 for the season. He now leads the Pac-12 in that category.

EMU gets two singles but Serven guns down a runner trying to steal third. Reminder: pic.twitter.com/iF6B9RohKI

— House of Sparky (@HouseOfSparky) March 5, 2016

The catcher had a successful day at the plate as well, driving in the team's first run of the game with a sacrifice fly.

Woodmansee's streak stays alive: Colby Woodmansee continued to do Colby Woodmansee-like things up in Corvallis, reaching base in each of the three games. He has now reached successfully in all 19 games the Sun Devils have played this season.

The shortstop is hitting at a .400 clip so far this year and is second in the Pac-12 in RBIs. It's still early, but Woodmansee certainly seems to be living up to all of the preseason hype.

3 Down

Starting pitching: Arizona State's trio of starting arms did not fare will this weekend against their top-five opponent. Seth Martinez was the only starter to get out of the first inning, and he would end up exiting the game after being charged with three runs.

Martinez's performance, however, was much, much better than the two that followed. Eli Lingos' day was done before he even recorded an out, eventually being charged with the first six runs of a 12-2 loss. Reagan Todd then followed up that performance on Sunday with one just as bad, giving up two runs in 0.2 innings of work before leaving the mound.

The offense: Save for innings seven through nine, the Sun Devil offense struggled mightily this weekend. Only one run was scored in the early-to-middle innings from Friday until Sunday, and the Oregon State pitching staff was masterful at escaping any sign of damage that came their way up until the ninth frame.

Confidence: While the Beavers may be one of the top teams in the country, starting conference play with three consecutive losses (two of which were blowouts) is never a good thing. Arizona State will try to get off the schnide on Tuesday against San Diego before stepping back into Pac-12 play against Utah next weekend.

Looking Ahead

The Sun Devils will return home for a single game against the Torreros tomorrow night. San Diego is 12-10 on the season and is coming off a series loss against Saint Mary's last weekend.

Tuesday's game is set to start at 6:30 p.m. at Phoenix Municipal Stadium.