Florida State Errors It Out, Loses to Arizona State, 11-10

Arizona State took full advantage of a poor performance by Florida State in the College World Series opener.

The sixth-seeded Sun Devils held on Friday for an 11-10 victory that saw the third-seeded Seminoles bury themselves with six errors.

Arizona State (39-22), spoiling a two-home run effort by Florida State catcher Jeremy Salazar, went ahead for good with three runs in the seventh inning--the last two aided by the fifth error by the Seminoles (53-19).

“I’m obviously a little bit embarrassed by the way we played. That’s not Florida State baseball,” Seminoles coach Mike Martin said.

“Doggone it, we’ve played 70 cotton-picking games,” Martin said, bobbing his head in frustration with each word. “We are not freshmen anymore. We cotton-picking stunk the dag-gum yard up.”

With Arizona State trailing 10-9 with two outs in the seventh, Rudy Arguelles singled to right field. Florida State’s Matt Diaz missed the cutoff man with a wild throw to the plate, allowing Dustin Delucchi to score the tying run.

The Sun Devils went ahead when Willie Bloomquist walked, reached second on a fielder’s choice, moved to third on Diaz’s error and scored on a wild pitch by reliever Scott Proctor.

Things looked great for the Seminoles in the sixth after Salazar hit an 0-2 pitch into the left-center field bleachers for a two-out grand slam that erased an 8-6 deficit. Salazar also hit a two-run shot in the fourth but said he went away feeling empty because of the loss.

“We can’t expect to win when we played like we did today,” he said.

In the bottom of the seventh, the Seminoles missed a chance to tie it at 11 when Arizona State catcher Greg Halvorson took a throw from right fielder Mikel Moreno and tagged Karl Jernigan, who was trying to score from second.

“I knew he was going to try to score to get the momentum, and that was a momentum turner,” Moreno said.

Arizona State built an 8-2 lead with a six-run fifth inning off reliever Jon McDonald (10-4), highlighted by Halvorson’s three-run homer. The Seminoles caused many of their own problems with three errors in the inning.

Freshman Chad Pennington (7-2), the last of three Arizona State pitchers, threw 3 1-3 innings, allowing two hits with four walks and five strikeouts.

“I knew once they brought Penny into the game, it was a done deal,” Moreno said. “He’s been nails all year.”

The Sun Devils won despite not using the ace of their staff, Ryan Mills (7-3, 4.32 ERA), who threw Monday in the Midwest regional final.