Hairston breaks ASU home run record as Sun Devils roll past Cincinnati into Big 12 semis

All Hail. The throne belongs to Hairy Bonds now. Arizona State has a new home run king, and there is nobody left to chase.

For nearly two weeks, sophomore outfielder Landon Hairston could feel the record hanging over every at-bat. After blasting his way to a national-leading 25 home runs, the swings that once seemed automatic suddenly stopped leaving the yard. Ten straight games passed without a homer as Hairston sat one shy of the program record.

Then came Houston. Two home runs in the regular-season finale tied the legendary mark of 27 and eased the tension that followed Hairston into postseason play.

Thursday night in ASU’s Big 12 tournament opener against Cincinnati, Hairston made sure the record belonged to him alone.

With the Sun Devils leading 5-1 in the fourth inning, Hairston jumped on an 0-1 pitch and sent a screaming line drive into the Bearcats bullpen. The crack of the bat echoed through Surprise Stadium, and the pocket of ASU fans behind the dugout erupted.

“To be a part of something in such a storied program, it means the world to me,” Hairston said. “No words to describe it.”

Hairston admired it immediately. By the time he rounded third, he pounded his chest and crowned himself ASU’s new home run king.

No. 28. History, finally, all his.

Hairston’s blast was only part of ASU’s offensive avalanche. The Sun Devils piled up 10 runs on 12 hits and capitalized on four Cincinnati errors in one of their cleanest all-around performances of the season. Senior right-hander Kole Klecker battled through a career-high six walks but allowed just one run across four innings, while sophomore right-hander Taylor Penn delivered three scoreless innings with five strikeouts out of the bullpen as ASU rolled into the semifinals with a 10-2 win.

If Cincinnati wanted any chance of slowing ASU’s offense Thursday night, the Bearcats could not afford to give away extra outs.

Instead, they handed the Sun Devils the game’s opening momentum almost immediately.

The first batter of the night reached on a throwing error by sophomore infielder Jackson Smith, a sign of the sloppy defense that has followed Cincinnati all season. The Bearcats entered the Big 12 tournament with the conference’s third-most errors, and against ASU, every defensive crack seemed to widen.

Hairston cashed in the next mistake. With graduate outfielder Matt Polk on third in the second inning, Hairston chopped a routine ground ball up the middle that sophomore infielder Charlie Niehaus failed to handle cleanly, allowing Polk to score easily.

“I never expected it,” Cincinnati head coach Jordan Bischel said. “Some of this was hard-hit baseballs, but we left seven outs out there, and some of them were scored hits. I’m not criticizing the scorer, but there were seven baseballs we could have played. You do that, you’re just not going to win the ballgame.”

The unraveling only accelerated an inning later.

Graduate outfielder Dean Toigo reached first on another throwing error by Smith on what should have been a routine play in the third inning. One batter later, junior infielder Dominic Smaldino reached on yet another throwing error, this one from senior infielder Christian Mitchell. 

ASU never let Cincinnati recover. Junior infielder Garrett Michel followed with an RBI groundout before Polk lined an RBI single into center, giving ASU three early runs fueled almost entirely by Bearcat mistakes.

Still, the Sun Devils did far more than wait for Cincinnati to collapse.

Smaldino crushed a two-run homer to the opposite field in the first inning off junior right-hander Nathan Taylor, Cincinnati’s single-season strikeout record holder with 111 entering the night. ASU struck out only once against Taylor, chasing him after just three innings, his shortest outing of the season.

“(Smaldino’s) been outstanding,” Bloomquist said. “We bumped him up in that four hole, and he’s produced like a cleanup hitter should. He’s on a bit of a heater right now, so we’ll keep riding him. The second half of the year, he’s been outstanding.”

Once Taylor exited, the game quickly turned into a rout.

Junior infielder PJ Moutzouridis opened the fourth with one of his two extra-base hits on the night before Hairston delivered the defining swing, a laser into the right-field bullpen for his record-breaking 28th home run that stretched the lead to 7-1.

“For this young man to be on top of that mountain, that’s pretty damn special,” Bloomquist said. “It’s amazing, and I’m grateful to have the opportunity to coach him, recruit him, get him here, and then have him essentially be the cornerstone of a very good offense for us. I’m just super proud of the way he’s handled the attention, for lack of a better term. He’s done a great job of just staying even-keeled.”

While ASU’s offense kept piling on, senior right-hander Kole Klecker spent much of the night escaping danger. Cincinnati constantly threatened, but unlike the Sun Devils, the Bearcats never found the timely hit.

Klecker allowed three hits and walked a career-high six batters across four innings. The first inning alone nearly spiraled, beginning with a double and a walk before Cincinnati loaded the bases with two more free passes. Earlier in the season, that kind of traffic often led to crooked numbers against ASU.

Not this time.

Klecker escaped with only one run allowed and repeatedly stranded runners over the next three innings, including another bases-loaded jam in the third. Cincinnati finished just 2 for 14 with runners on base.

By the time sophomore right-hander Taylor Penn entered, the game already felt finished. Penn carved through the middle innings with three scoreless frames, allowing one hit while striking out five of the nine batters he faced.

ASU buried any remaining suspense late. Polk launched a solo homer in the seventh for his third hit of the night, and Toigo ripped a two-run double into left-center in the eighth as the Sun Devils rolled into the Big 12 semifinals with a 10-2 win.

Now the focus shifts to West Virginia, with first pitch set for 8 p.m. in Surprise, a rematch of a team ASU fell to earlier this season at home.

“We had a dogfight at our place earlier in the year,” Bloomquist said. “They’re extremely talented. It was two heavyweights going at it at our place earlier in the year, and they got us in that series. I anticipate it being a tough one again tomorrow. We’re not 100% sure who we’re going with tomorrow. We needed to get to this one first, see who we used, and figure out who’s going to match up the best.”