For most of this season, it hasn’t mattered if the opponent threw a left-handed pitcher or a righty, Arizona’s numbers were good either way. But not all lefties are created equal, and the one the Wildcats faced Friday night had their number.
Oklahoma State’s Harrison Bodendorf threw a 10-inning complete game, allowing just three hits—all to Aaron Walton—in a 4-2 victory at Hi Corbett Field to open the weekend series.
Bodendorf threw 125 pitches and struck out 10 with one walk and one hit batter, his curve ball giving Arizona (23-10, 8-5 Big 12) fits all night. The five left-handed hitters in the order were 0 for 17 and reached base three times, two by Mason White on a walk and hit by pitch. Lefties had been hitting .333 against Bodendorf.
“His curveball was coming from a completely different angle than we’re used to,” UA coach Chip Hale said. “We tried to practice it all week, but obviously we just were having a hard time with it.”
OSU (16-15, 5-6) took the lead in the top of the 10th on a 2-run single by Jayson Jones against a drawn-in infield, his hard grounder just going to White’s left. That came against Casey Hintz, who went 3.2 innings in relief of Collin McKinney and earned the loss.
McKinney had his best outing as a Wildcat, allowing two unearned runs and seven hits with one walk and eight strikeouts over 5.2 innings. He had walked at least two in six straight appearances and hadn’t made it out of the 5th since early March.
“He’s looked good, but to hold them for that long … we could honestly have won the game 1-0 if we just played good defense,” Hale said.
Arizona was up 1-0 in the 4th when OSU got its first two runs, benefitting from shoddy UA defense. Jones reached on a throwing error by White to lead off the inning, then a fly ball to right resulted in a double after freshman Gunner Geile lost it in the twilight.
Arizona brought the infield in and Maddox Mihalakis fielded a grounder to third that led to a Cowboys runner getting tagged out in a rundown, but the other runner advanced to third, then a fly out to center drew a throw home and forced that runner to hold while the trailer made it into scoring position.
Drew Culbertson then hit a 2-run single to put OSU up 2-1.
“We need to play and make the routine plays with our veteran players, and that’s a disappointing,” Hale said.
Bodendorf retired 16 in a row from the 4th through 9th before Walton, who had singled in the 1st and 4th, roped a 1-0 fastball 420-feet to right-center to tie the game and force extras.
“Just being ready for the pitch I was looking for,” Walton said. “You got to give credit to (Bodendorf), he threw a great game. The approach was just being on time for the fastball, or whatever you want to pick out.”
Arizona will send out sophomore righty Owen Kramkowski for Saturday’s 6 p.m. PT middle game. Kramkowski threw 8.2 innings in a win at ASU last weekend.