Devils Bounce Back With Help from Cougars

After a tough final two games of a weekend series last weekend against Stanford, the Arizona State Sun Devils had to come back and make a statement on Friday night in Pullman and thanks to a lot of help from the Cougars, the Devils did just that. ASU’s offense rebounded to pound out 16 hits and was helped by four Washington St. errors that led to 10 unearned en route to a 15-3 rout.

The Devils jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the first inning. Brett Wallace, who was back hitting leadoff, led off with a single and Jason Kipnis followed with a single. After Petey Paramore struck out, Ike Davis hit a groundball to shortstop Shea Vucinich who committed an error that allowed Wallace to score from second.

ASU would blow the game open on a very interesting fourth inning which saw the Sun Devils score 9 runs off of Washington State starter Ross Humes, but only one of those runs were earned.

Davis started the inning with a single to left and advanced to second on a groundout by Kiel Roling. Raoul Torrez followed with a bunt single that sent Davis to third and another error by Vucinich allowed Davis to score on a ball hit by Marcel Champagnie. Ryan Sontag’s RBI groundout would make it 3-0 and an error by second baseman Michael Weber allowed Champagnie to score and make it 4-0.

Jason Kipnis would make it 6-0 Devils with a two-RBI single that scored Mike Jones and Brett Wallace. After Paramore was hit by a pitch, Ike Davis lined a single up the middle that scored Kipnis and Paramore to make it 8-0. Kiel Roling would continue the outburst with his fifth home run of the season to make it 10-0.

"You can't walk guys and give up cheap runs," Washington State Head Coach Donnie Marbut said. "We gave up 10 unearned runs. I've never seen anything like it and I'm disappointed because our defense has been our forte."

Mike Jones’ RBI single in the sixth made it 11-0 ASU and Wallace added a single that scored two more ASU runs.

The Cougars would finally get to ASU starter Josh Satow in the fourth on an RBI double by Scott Suttmeier. Satow, who struggled in his last start at Stanford, rebounded on Friday to go six plus innings allowing three runs. Dustin Brader pitched the final three innings allowing just one hit along the way to pick up his first save of the season.

Brett Wallace added an RBI single in the eighth to make it 14-3 and his RBI groundout in the ninth made it 15-3. Wallace finished the day 4-7 with 4RBIs. Kipnis, Davis and Torrez all added three hits apiece to lead ASU to the rout.

The Devils and the Cougars return to the diamond tomorrow afternoon at 2PM for game two of the series. Mike Leake is likely to get the ball opposite Jayson Miller for Washington State.