Baseball season on deck
February 18th, 2008, 9:01 pm · Post a Comment · posted by Dan Zeiger
The blog staff always gets a little fired up at the start of an Arizona State baseball season — this little corner of the Web started out as a baseball blog, after all — so here are a few diamond notes as we anxiously await the Sun Devils’ first pitch.
ASU, ranked No. 1 in the USA Today (coaches) poll, No. 9 by Baseball America and No. 3 by Collegiate Baseball, opens the year on Friday against Miami (Ohio) in the DeMarini Invitational at Packard Stadium. It plays Vanderbilt on Saturday and two-time defending national champion Oregon State on Sunday.
As of Monday afternoon, coach Pat Murphy indicated, there is no change in the status of sophomore closer Jason Jarvis, whose eligibility is in question due to a dispute over a fall-semester grade. He is unavailable to the Sun Devils until the matter is resolved, and for much longer if it is not resolved in Jarvis’ favor.
Murphy said that left-hander Ike Davis and righties Dustin Brader and Tommy Rafferty are among the stopper options if Jarvis, who set an ASU freshman record with 11 saves last season, remains sidelined.
The Sun Devils will be all-new up the middle, where shortstop Andrew Romine and second baseman Eric Sogard were as consistent as they come the last two seasons. Three players — junior-college transfer Marcel Champagnie, sophomore Raoul Torrez and transfer Jake Elmore — are battling for two spots.
Champagnie is in the running to start at shortstop, while Torrez and Elmore can play either midfield position.
“We’ll have a lot of inexperience up the middle,” Murphy said. “If (infielders coach) Andy Stankiewicz can pull it off and make them grow up quickly, then maybe he should get hired by USA Baseball to help them win the World Baseball Classic. He’s been doing a great job with them so far.”
Brett Wallace’s move from first base to third and Davis’ switch to first leaves a hole in right field, where a pair of true freshmen — Matt Newman, a Phoenix Brophy Prep product, and Andy Workman of Chandler Hamilton — are vying for playing time.
Right field can be a challenging position at Packard Stadium, where evening start times later in the season come with a vision-impairing setting sun. However, Murphy has no hesitancy to use two guys straight out of high school.
“Newman is advanced beyond his years,” Murphy said. “He’s the kind of freshman you really want. He won’t show up in the box score all of the time, but he can impact every game he plays in. Workman has a ton of ability, and he’s been a pleasant surprise.”
Among the other notable non-conference matchups are a March 22 doubleheader against Florida International, now coached by former ASU assistant Turtle Thomas; a March 23 game against UC Irvine, which eliminated the Sun Devils from last year’s College World Series, and a two-game series at frequent super-regional foe Cal State Fullerton on April 22-23.
The Sun Devils host archrival Arizona, Collegiate Baseball’s preseason No. 1, in a non-Pac-10 game on March 18. The Challenge at Chase is apparently dead, and — the money raised for charity notwithstanding — that is a good thing for ASU, considering that the Wildcats took both games played between the teams at Chase Field.
