ASU Baseball: Meyer throws a gem, offense comes around late to beat Oregon State

It was a rough start to the weekend for Arizona State baseball (9-12, 1-2 Pac-12). There is no way to sugarcoat getting outscored 33-2 in its first two Pac-12 games of the season. No. 3 Oregon State (14-4, 4-2) gave ASU a taste of what playing top-tier team in the conference (and nation) is like, but that did not seem to fluster the Sun Devils.

Down to its final three outs with a sweep lingering in the overcast skies of Corvallis, it would have been easy for ASU to let down and get on the bus back to Tempe. The team battled back and finally found an offensive spark in the ninth to give them the 3-1 comeback win.

Down 1-0 entering the final frame, the Sun Devils had a one-out rally where they scored three unanswered runs. Nate Baez tied the game up with an RBI single up the middle, Jacob Tobias walked in the go-ahead run with the bases loaded (a week after ASU scored five runs that same way), and Kai Murphy added insurance with a sac-fly to right field.

Brock Peery struck out the side in the bottom half of the inning to close the game out and pick up his third save of the year.

The Sun Devil pitching staff as a whole kept the Beaver bats quiet all afternoon, which kept ASU within striking distance to make a comeback.

Sophomore starter Tyler Meyer was dominant on the mound for ASU. The righty kept Oregon State off-balance and guessing at the plate. In the 123 pitches he threw, Meyer was able to get through seven innings, striking out nine and allowing one run on four hits.

Meyer got down in a lot of counts, but to his credit worked out of them and only ended up walking two batters on the day. The only extra base hit given up by Meyer scored the only OSU run in the bottom of the second. It was an RBI double by Tanner Smith.

Oregon State had some solid pitching of their own before giving up the three-run ninth. AJ Lattery started the first 2.1 innings for the Beavers before being replaced by Ben Ferrer in long relief.

It was easy to tell Ferrer was feeling good because he was taking long laps around the mound after each retired Sun Devil (almost like Max Scherzer when he is his zone).

In five innings of work, Ferrer gave up one hit and struck out seven while throwing only 56 pitches. Ferrer retired the last 12 Sun Devils he faced before giving way to the bullpen blunder.

ASU only tallied four hits on the day, two of which came in the final inning.

It will be a short turnaround for the Sun Devils, as they host Grand Canyon for a Tuesday night game. First pitch is scheduled for 6 p.m. local time.