April 19, 2009

Box Score

TEMPE, Ariz. - The No. 2 Arizona State University baseball team completed a three-game sweep of Stanford on Sunday with a 6-3 victory in front of a crowd of 3,028 at Winkles Field-Packard Stadium at Brock Ballpark. The Sun Devils improve to 28-8 overall, 13-2 in the Pac-10, on the season with the win. It was ASU's third straight home sweep of Stanford.

Seth Blair got the victory on the mound, going 6.2 innings and allowing six hits and just one earned run with six strikeouts to move to 4-1 on the year. Mitchell Lambson went the final 2.1 innings to earn his third save of the season. Lambson recorded the final outs of all three wins in the series.

The game remained scoreless until the fourth inning, when the Sun Devils scored five runs to take command of the game. Jared McDonald scored on a throwing error by Stanford right fielder Kellen Kiilsgaard after a Drew Maggi single, and Zack MacPhee then scored on a wild pitch to get ASU's first two runs. Carlos Ramirez then belted a two-run double to the gap in left center, and he came around to score on a wild pitch later in the inning.

Stanford chipped away at the deficit with single runs in the sixth and seventh innings to cut the ASU lead to 5-2, but the Sun Devils answered in the bottom of the seventh when Abe Ruiz led off the inning with a double and then scored on a single up the middle by McDonald.

Kiilsgaard hit a solo homer for the Cardinal in the eighth, but Lambson then retired five straight batters to secure the ASU victory.

Ruiz had two hits after coming on in the fourth as a pinch-hitter to lead the offense. The Sun Devils drew nine walks in the game, all in the first four innings of the game, with eight coming against Stanford starter Brett Mooneyham.

The Sun Devils host Hawai'i on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. before returning to Pac-10 action with a three-game series at California on April 24-26.