Territorial Cup Series: Sun Devils plate ten in the sixth inning to down Wildcats

There was a point in Wednesday's game vs. ASU that Arizona was up 6-1.

The Sun Devils ended up winning 14-6.

13 unanswered runs, and ten of those runs came in the sixth inning.

Tyler Crawford started the inning in relief for Tyger Talley for his first action since suffering from a severe stomach illness.

It could have gone better for Crawford, as he threw eight pitches, all of them balls, and was replaced by Xavier Borde.

It didn't get much better from there, but Arizona's defense did the bullpen no favors.  Errors by Trent Gilbert and Kevin Newman came on grounders that could have ended the inning each time, but both balls were booted and the implosion continued.

There's something to say about getting jitters when playing ASU, and it seems that stud relievers Borde and Tyler Parmenter both suffered from that.

Parmenter got credited with six earned runs (seven total) while recording just one out.  Borde was unable to register an out when he walked the only batter he faced.

The bright spots on the pitching staff Wednesday?  Evan Hebert and Bobby Dalbec.

Hebert worked out of the sixth inning mess, and also worked around a little jam in the 7th.  The freshman ended up with 1.2 innings of scoreless ball, while giving up three hits and walking a guy.

Dalbec showed no freshman jitters against ASU, throwing a scoreless inning, and roping a ball to the base of the left field wall to drive in the first two Arizona runs of the game.

Broadcast notes

The game was broadcast on Pac-12 Networks, and is the first of several Wildcat games that will be on the network.  The announcing crew was JB Long and former MLB player and UCLA Bruin Eric Byrnes.

Please don't let Byrnes do anymore of these games after this weekend.  Pleeeeeeaaaaaaaaasssssseeeeeeee.

I likened him to baseball's version of Bill Walton, except, you know, Walton was good at his sport when he played.  But Byrnes would tell weird stories that had nothing to do with anything a la Walton.

P12N also conducted mid-game interviews with both head coaches, and it was pretty horrible.  All Andy Lopez did during his interview was compare the Pac-12 to the SEC.  We don't want to hear that during the middle of a baseball game.  And if you're already watching the Pac-12 Network, you probably think the Pac-12 is better than the SEC in the first place.  We don't need more conference propaganda going on.

Also, the entire game was talking about ASU moving to Phoenix Municipal next year, and Andy Lopez's heart surgery.  We're halfway through the season.  Find something actually having to do with baseball to talk about please.  Of course, it didn't seem like Eric Byrnes did a lot of research on anything before the game, so maybe that was all he knew about it coming into it.

I switched to radio halfway through the sixth because I had to leave the TV for a while.  The radio guy on 1290 AM didn't know how to pronounce any players' names, but he did call out both Riley Moore and Jordan Berger on their horrible defense behind the plate.  So that was fun.

The Joseph Maggi saga continues

Maggi was the starting right fielder, and low and behold, he went 0-for-4.  Please just start the guy at first base.  He did do this though:

He didn't catch the ball, but destroying a chunk of the Packard Stadium fence is always fun.

Arizona gets back after it on Friday night at 7 PM against Oregon State.  All three games this weekend will be broadcast on Pac-12 Network, and as far as I could tell from the game, Eric Byrnes will be the color guy for all three games.  So get to the ballpark if you can to avoid that mess.