The Utah baseball team is hoping to not only grab its tenth victory of the season this weekend, but also upset a nationally-ranked team and win a series along the way when Arizona State comes to town Thursday evening.
Utah is currently 3-6 in Pac-12 play and getting the next few wins will be no easy task against the Sun Devils at Smith’s Ballpark. ASU comes into the series riding a four-game winning streak and have been victorious in 11 of its last 13 games dating back to last month.
Arizona State is ranked inside the top-15 nationally and boast victories over teams like Oregon, Oregon State, Oklahoma State, Oklahoma and a three-game sweep of conference foe Stanford.
Prior to Pac-12 play, the Utes pitching was a constant that carried them through earlier games, but since starting conference play, the starters have struggled with their consistency on the mound.
Of those struggling, junior Bret Helton will not be starting the opening game this series like he has been all season long. Instead, junior Nolan Stouder will be taking his place.
Head coach Bill Kinneberg said it’s important for Helton to get back in control of his play.
“[It’s] really vital not only for him, but for us,” he said. “It’s important that we get him back on track. We’re going to use him a little different this weekend and see if we can change his psych a little bit and put him in a different situation instead of the first night start. We want him back in Friday nights as quickly as we can.”
Junior Dalton Carroll will take the mound on Friday after struggling against Cal last weekend. He is currently 3-4 on the season and has an ERA of 4.29, second-best on the team.
Freshman Jayson Rose, who is first on the team with an ERA of 4.00, will be starting the Saturday contest. His last outing was his best of the season, which concluded in 11 strikeouts and a victory over the ranked Golden Bears.
Kinneberg said that while he knows that repeating the performance he had against Cal is most likely not going to happen, he still wants to see Rose build off everything he has done all season long.
“I don’t know if [Rose] will have a game like that again,” Kinneberg said. “We just want to see improvement every week as far as his command and location and pitch ability. That’s the same as anybody.”
Freshman Wade Gulden said that the team needs to work on not letting big plays get past them against ASU, as the team’s confidence goes down after such plays.
“Eliminate stupid mistakes,” he said. “It seems like the games where we lose, there is always a big inning or a play that kind of defines the game and not in a good way. Something that kind of takes the life out of the dugout and takes the life out of the guys that are playing.”
That said, sophomore Hunter Simmons said that the team is riding positive momentum since its victory over Cal and that he hopes that win will give them an extra boost heading into this weekend.
“We have to have a good two days of practice,” Simmons said. “ASU is a good team. Every team we’ve played has been very very good…We have to have a good practice. Last week we didn’t have a great execution practice.”
Thursday’s game is scheduled to start at 6:00 p.m. MT.
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