ASU BASEBALL
Torkelson hunting NCAA, ASU homer records
With 20 home runs, Spencer Torkelson easily broke ASU’s freshman record that was held by Barry Bonds. With 16 games left, Torkelson is swinging at other milestones.
Out of every possible scenario for Arizona State baseball this season, an historic home run chase was among the most unlikely.
Mitch Jones’ school record for homers has stood for close to two decades since he banged 27 as a senior in 2000. With ASU still a year away from moving the fences in at its now larger home at Phoenix Municipal Stadium, no one expected that mark would be in jeopardy with 16 games remaining this season.
Those who have come closest to Jones were Jeff Larish with 23 in 2005, a season that extended to the College World Series, and Brett Wallace with 22 in 2008 when ASU played through a super regional. From 2011-17, ASU had just one double-digit home run hitter, Abe Ruiz with 13 in 2012. Gage Canning hit a team-high six in 2017.
There will be no postseason to pad statistics this season. ASU is 17-22 and battling to avoid a second straight losing season for the first time in varsity history since 1959.
Still, there is a buzz at Phoenix Muni every time Spencer Torkelson steps to the plate, which is more often than ever given his recent move to leadoff hitter.
“You’ve got a hitter like that, you want him to the plate as much as possible,” ASU coach Tracy Smith said Sunday after Torkelson hit his 20th homer. “He makes the other dugout make adjustments.”
It’s been that way back to Little League in Petaluma, Calif., Rick Torkelson said. There is some dispute between father and son whether Spencer hit 36 or 38 home runs as a 12-year-old – Rick goes with the higher number – but either way it demolished the former record of 18 in a 40-year-old league.
Yes, Spender Torkelson hit a combined 11 home runs in his four-year career at Casa Grande High School in Petaluma, but that now is the outlier.
Torkelson needed just 25 games to pass Barry Bonds’ ASU freshman home run record which stood at 11 since 1983. There is no reason to believe that Bob Horner’s career record (56) won’t be in jeopardy by 2020 during Torkelson’s junior season.
Especially because Torkelson really isn’t trying to hit home runs.
“I really pride myself on having good at-bats no matter what the outcome is,” he said. “I’m always trying to hit the ball hard. I’m not thinking home run. If I get to two strikes, I’m thinking just to try to make contact with the ball and good things will happen because I’m strong enough.”
Torkelson’s plate discipline is serving him well even as the home run mania builds. He is hitting .326 and has almost as many walks (26) as strikeouts (30). He is fourth nationally in slugging percentage (.806) but also barely behind Canning for the team lead in on base percentage.
“His whole career, he’s always been patient and taken his walks when he got them,” Rick Torkelson said. “Then when he gets his pitch, he unloads on it. He doesn’t go fishing.”
Smith sees the same thing. Torkelson has the “conviction,” he said, to stick with a plan to wait for a breaking pitch even if means taking a fastball down the middle. “He’s so locked in to what he’s looking for.”
Chicago Cubs star Kyle Schwarber was that way at Indiana, where Smith previously coached, as were a few other Hoosiers now in the majors. Torkelson is doing things “at the same or more advanced level in terms of power” compared to Schwarber as a college freshman in 2012 (eight home runs, .513 slugging percentage).
Torkelson, youngest of four children, talks about what he learned from his parents about being a good teammate and person.
“We pointed out examples of ways not to act,” Lori, his mother, said. “Early this season, he had a couple of strikeouts and hit his bat on the ground. We stopped that right away. And not just us. His high school coaches stay in constant contact with him and live stream every game. They made the same comment, and that made an impact on him.”
In addition to the ASU single-season home run record, Torkelson is chasing the NCAA freshman home run record of 26 set by Georgia Southern’s Todd Greene in 1990.
It likely will come down to the final two series of the season – at Arizona on May 17-19 and home against California on May 24-26. When Jones passed Horner to break the school record that had stood since 1978, he did it in Tucson in the 1990 regular-season finale.
“What (Jones) did swelled me up inside,” then ASU coach Pat Murphy said.
“He’s been trying so damn hard to do this and is one of the nicest kids you’d ever want to meet. He wouldn’t be denied.”
Sounds like exactly what is being said about Torkelson except his success has come much sooner.