Baseball Stays Alive in Pac-12 Tourney With Win Over #22 Oregon

SCOTTSDALE – Kai Murphy launched the go-ahead two-run blast in the bottom of the sixth and Sun Devil Baseball staved off elimination in the Pac-12 Tournament with a 4-2 win over #22 Oregon on Thursday at Scottsdale Stadium.
 
The Sun Devil pitching staff held the fourth-seeded Ducks to just two runs on six hits, stranding 11 Oregon baserunners and holding them to 1-for-13 hitting with runners in scoring position.
 
Murphy paced the Sun Devil offense with his 3-for-4 day, but no hit was more important than his two-run shot in the bottom of the sixth that put ASU up 3-2 and gave it a lead it wouldn’t relinquish.
 
Will Rogers added two hits and two runs and Sean McLain added a multi-hit game as well.
 
Four Sun Devil bullpen pitchers combined to shut out the Ducks down the stretch as Christian Bodlovich, Graham Osman, Blake Pivaroff and Brock Peery combined to toss 4.1 shutout innings with five strikeouts. Tyler Meyer gave ASU a gritty 4.2 innings with just two runs allowed in the start. Peery earned his Pac-12 leading 10^th save of the year.
 
With the win, ASU will face the loser of Thursday evening’s Stanford/Arizona game tomorrow afternoon at 3 p.m. AZT in another elimination game. 

TURNING POINT
Trailing 2-1 in the top of the sixth, Oregon got a pair of one-out singles and on the second, the batter tried to take an extra base on the throw from the outfield to third. Hunter Haas made an incredibly head’s up play to cut off the throw from Kai Murphy and immediately get it back to Nate Baez at second for the tag. The runner was initially called safe but Willie Bloomquist immediately requested a video review. The play was overturned to give Oregon two outs with a runner on third instead of runners on second and third with one out. Osman did the rest with a backwards K to strand the runner and keep ASU within a run.

BIG MOMENT 
That momentum change in the top of the sixth immediately paid dividends in the bottom half. Will Rogers notched a first-pitch single through the left side to bring up Kai Murphy. Murphy quickly went down 0-2 before drawing a ball. On the fourth pitch, Murphy left no doubt with a monstrous blast into the Charro Lodge in deep right field, the go-ahead two-run blast that put ASU up for good.

FINAL STRAW
Osman faced the minimum in the seventh thank to a double play and then a masterful three-pitch strikeout with three looking strikes. For the second straight day, ASU went…