With the 2026 season past the halfway point, all signs point to Arizona missing the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2019. Depending how this upcoming weekend goes, the Wildcats could surpass their loss total from a year ago with six weeks left in the regular season.<\/p>\n
But there\u2019s still plenty to play for, and in the case of the next opponent, play against. The UA hosts ASU for three games at Hi Corbett Field beginning Thursday night.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI just think we need to play a good game,\u201d coach Chip Hale said after Tuesday\u2019s home loss to West Virginia. \u201cBut we have to play good baseball, and minimize the free 90s.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the all-encompassing term Hale uses for opposing hitters getting on and getting over without the benefit of a hit. That was a big issue against West Virginia, when UA pitchers issued 10 walks, hit two batters and also had runs score on a passed ball, wild pitch and fielding error.<\/p>\n
The same thing happened the previous weekend in getting swept at UCF, when over three games Arizona (9-19, 2-7 Big 12) walked 14, hit two and had six wild pitches.<\/p>\n
\u201cASU is another one that\u2019s going to come in here, and if you give them free 90s it\u2019s not going to be pretty,\u201d Hale said.<\/p>\n
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The Sun Devils (21-8, 5-4) is averaging more than nine runs per game, and scored 10 in a nonconference win over Arizona last month. Any free 90s given to them will only enhance their potent attack, which is led by sophomore Landon Hairston, who is hitting .469 with 17 home runs and 48 RBI.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s having a Barry Bonds-type year, we\u2019re going to have to be very careful with him,\u201d Hale said of Hairston, whose father Scott Hairston played for Hale with the Tucson Sidewinders in the mid-2000s. \u201cLandon was born when I was managing his dad. We really wanted him. His dad said he basically wanted to be a Sun Devil his whole life, and you\u2019ve got to respect that. When I watch him, I root for him\u2014not when he\u2019s playing against us\u2014but it\u2019s hard. It\u2019s hard to root against him. He\u2019s a great kid, and they have a wonderful family.\u201d<\/p>\n
The annual Arizona\/ASU series also serves as a reunion for many Phoenix-area players who were either teammates or adversaries at the high school and club level. The UA has 17 in-state players, 14 from Maricopa County, while there are 10 Sun Devils from Arizona.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we cross these lines we don\u2019t like each other and we\u2019re going to go at it,\u201d said center fielder Carson McEntire, who grew up playing against ASU\u2019s Hairston, Josh Butler and Cole Carlon, among others. Both his parents graduated from ASU as well, but he said they\u2019ll be rooting for the Wildcats.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe house is a full Wildcat now, full go,\u201d said McEntire, who leads Arizona with six home runs and his 19 RBI is tied for the team lead. \u201cMy dad expects us to whoop some devil butt.\u201d<\/p>\n
Senior reliever Garrett Hicks, who grew up in Buckeye and was surrounded by ASU fans growing up, is looking forward to avenging the loss in Phoenix last month.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m excited to play them, especially after we played them up there, we didn\u2019t like some of the stuff they did,\u201d Hick said. \u201cIt\u2019s ASU. They did it last year, whatever. I don\u2019t like them, whatever. But it\u2019s a rivalry game. Stakes are high. Right now, the whole college baseball world thinks we\u2019re a dead man. You can\u2019t kill a dead man when he\u2019s already dead. At the end of the day, we\u2019re a dangerous team and we\u2019re gonna come out and show what we got.\u201d<\/p>\n
Injury update<\/p>\n
Arizona continues to deal with injuries, the latest being a quad injury to freshman outfielder Caleb Danzeisen that has kept him out the last three games. Hale expects him to be available this weekend.<\/p>\n
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The Wildcats have lost another player for the year, as second baseman Tyler Bickers had shoulder surgery. He\u2019s the third position player to suffer a season-ending shoulder injury along with outfielder Easton Breyfogle and infielder Gavin Triezenberg.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s in addition to four pitchers being out indefinitely or for the season. And freshman Jack Lafflam, who started Tuesday, had to come out after two innings because he \u201cdidn\u2019t feeling great\u201d according to Hale.<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t the first time Hale has had an injury-plagued season like this.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was fired from the Diamondbacks when it happened,\u201d he said. \u201cWe were decimated with injuries that year, 2016. We were playing catchers in the outfield, and it didn\u2019t bode well for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The injuries for Arizona began in the fall, which was when Hicks dealt with one. That led to a poor start to this season, but since going into the pitching lab he\u2019s thrown 5.1 scoreless innings including a career-best 4.1 Sunday against UCF.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore that, my mechanics all year just felt wrong, felt off since coming back from being hurt in the fall,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd so it was just kind of a timing thing. We figured it out. And now it\u2019s just kind of just going out there and rolling. And now I kind of figured everything out, spin, everything, so now everything\u2019s starting to click, which is nice.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the 2026 season past the halfway point, all signs point to Arizona missing the NCAA Tournament for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":658120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[146,9413,5,64381,77591,4,70787,2245],"class_list":{"0":"post-658119","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-arizona","9":"tag-asu","10":"tag-baseball","11":"tag-chip-hale","12":"tag-landon-hairston","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-scott-hairston","15":"tag-the-diamondbacks"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116333351106496788","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=658119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/658120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}