SCOTTSDALE — Arizona couldn’t cool off the hottest team in the Pac-12 Thursday, losing 15-8 to No. 1 seed Stanford on Day 2 of the Pac-12 Tournament at Scottsdale Stadium.
The loss sets up an elimination game against the Wildcats’ fiercest rival: Arizona State, whose campus is a mere 15 minutes away.
The fifth-seeded Cats will face the eighth-seeded Sun Devils at 3 p.m. Friday in what undoubtedly will be the best-attended game of the tournament. The winner will face the Cardinal at 9 a.m. Saturday.
Arizona (36-22) and ASU split four games during the regular season. The Sun Devils won a non-conference game in Phoenix on April 5; the Wildcats took two of three in Tucson later in the month.
“We just have to win,” UA coach Chip Hale said. “If we don't, we go back down south to get ready (for the NCAA Tournament).
"We'll do the best we can. We’ll let it all go. We're not going to play tight.”
Stanford (39-14) won its 14th in a row and earned a day off Friday. ASU (26-31) eliminated Oregon earlier Thursday.
What looked like an elite pitching matchup on paper between the Wildcats and Cardinal never materialized. Neither Arizona left-hander Garrett Irvin nor Stanford righty Alex Williams had his best stuff.
The Cardinal — who easily led the Pac-12 with 86 home runs during the regular season — homered four times off of Irvin, who had allowed three in his first 14 starts. He yielded a season-high seven earned runs in 4 1/3 innings. Irvin hadn’t surrendered more than three earned runs in any 2021 start.
“He really didn’t locate like he can,” Hale said. “They had a good game plan. They really used the other side of the field with his fastball, and then some of his off-speed stuff they pulled.
“This is a really hot team we played. They played well against us last time (a three-game UA sweep in March). We pitched a little better.
“You have to keep it in the ballpark. We didn’t. We didn't do a very good job of that.
Williams, the Pac-12 Pitcher of the Year, allowed four earned runs on a season-high eight hits in 4 2/3 innings. He had surrendered only three earned runs in his previous eight starts combined.
The Wildcats totaled 14 hits, and every batter in the lineup had at least one hit or one RBI.
“Offensively, we have no issues,” Hale said. “It was a great offensive performance against a really good team.”
Outfielder Mac Bingham catches a ball during Thursday's Pac-12 Tournament game against Stanford.
Arizona had a pretty clear game plan against Williams: Get his pitch count up and get him off the mound.
The first 13 UA batters took the first pitch they saw from the veteran right-hander. Many took the second as well.
The strategy paid off in the bottom of the third, when the Wildcats scored three runs to erase a 3-0 deficit. (The first three Cardinal runs came on solo homers.) Tony Bullard — the first UA hitter to swing at the first pitch — singled to right to drive in the first two. It was the eighth pitch of an at-bat in which Bullard followed off six offerings.
Noah Turley’s single to right-center on an 0-2 count scored Chase Davis with the tying run.
The tie didn’t last long. Stanford’s Brock Jones singled to center with two outs and the bases loaded in the top of the fourth, driving in two to make it 5-3. Irvin had allowed the Nos. 8 and 9 hitters to reach, bringing leadoff batter Jones to the plate.
In the fifth, Kody Huff smashed his second home run of the game, a two-run shot, to make it 7-3 and end Irvin’s night. The Cardinal broke the game open in the sixth, scoring five runs off relivers Chandler Murphy and George Arias Jr. The outburst included an opposite-field, three-run homer by Drew Bowser, his second of the game and third of the tournament.
Veteran outfielder Tanner O’Tremba, who had three hits, views the ASU matchup as “another 1-0” opportunity. He has no doubt the Wildcats will bounce back.
“We're a resilient team,” O’Tremba said. “Our team is really good at flushing the day before. We just move on. We've been taught to be that way. So I think you'll see that out of us tomorrow.”
Inside pitch
• O’Tremba was struck in the mouth by Huff’s second homer, which caromed off a railing above the right-field wall. A trainer tended to O’Tremba, whose mouth and lip were bleeding. He remained in the game and homered in his next at-bat.
• Stanford’s five home runs and 21 hits were the most allowed by the UA pitching staff this season. The Cardinal are averaging 10.8 runs during their 14-game winning streak. They’re 30-6 since being swept by the Wildcats.
• Huff and Bowser combined to go 6 for 11 with four home runs, eight runs and eight RBIs.
• Bullard matched O’Tremba with a team-high three hits. Bullard also had a team-best three RBIs.
• Right-hander TJ Nichols (5-4, 5.47 ERA) will start for Arizona against ASU.
