There were 583 fans in the stands Thursday night as Arizona opened up its series against Wichita State, but starting pitcher Chase Silseth remained as dominant as he has been for most of the season for the Wildcats. The UA sophomore put together his longest outing of the season going seven innings while allowing only one earned run in UA's 8-5 win over the Shockers to open the weekend.
Silseth (3-0) faced 27 batters and worked through a few tough spots on the way to his third win of the season. He finished with six strikeouts and no walks during his 97 pitches on the mound in the Wildcats' win.
"I was really pleased with Chase responding in the fashion that he did," UA head coach Jay Johnson said. "I think he set a really good tone for us in terms of attacking the strike zone, recording outs, which I thought was great."
The hard-throwing righty settled in nicely after a difficult start against Oklahoma in Texas last week at the Frisco Classic where he allowed 10 runs and 11 hits before being pulled from the game in the fifth inning. Thursday night Silseth didn't allow his first run until the fourth inning and he came away feeling better about his time on the mound than during last week's start.
"Last week at Frisco is definitely not something that happens very much, but it's definitely a learning experience," Silseth said after Thursday's win. "Fastball command is what it came down to last week. Left some balls up. When you leave balls up they're gonna put more in play, more line drives. This week when you kept the ball down most of their hits were just ground balls through the hole.
"There's just nothing you can do about that. Definitely just all about fastball command from last week to this week just being able to command the fastball down, in, out a lot better."
While Silseth's start certainly highlighted Arizona's performance on Thursday night, the Wildcats' offense will always be a big factor in every game. UA's hot bats once again provided Silseth and the pitching staff with enough run support to give the group on the mound plenty of comfort.
The Wildcats (11-2) used a five-run third inning to take control of the game, and it came by way of some small ball as Arizona manufactured its runs during that big inning. UA used four singles and two walks to score the runs highlighted by a two-run single from freshman designated hitter Jacob Berry that scored outfielders Donta' Williams and Ryan Holgate.
The inning started with a walk from third baseman Tony Bullard who scored on a single from Holgate earlier in the inning. Left fielder Mac Bingham singled to bring in first baseman Branden Boissiere who walked to get on base for the Wildcats.
Berry scored on a fielder's choice to cap the big inning for Arizona.
The Wildcats had just one extra base hit in Thursday's series opener against the Shockers.
"We caught that five spot and then there were just some other small things that we did that were really good," Johnson said. " ... I thought it was really quality play by our team tonight."
Base hits from Bullard and Williams in the fifth inning helped the Wildcats tack on two more runs.
Arizona's bullpen has been a bit inconsistent this season, but Johnson has been hopeful the team will be able to continue expanding the group. Thursday he stuck with two of the most reliable members of the bullpen, but it didn't come without a couple tough moments late in the game.
Veteran pitcher Quinn Flanagan gave up back to back singles to open the eighth inning leading to a run on a groundout from third baseman Paxton Wallace. Flanagan was able to work out of the inning without any more damage, but he gave up a double in the top of the ninth forcing the Wildcats to go to senior Preston Price to close out the game.
A wild pitch from Price allowed another run to score but he eventually was able to close out the Shockers to earn his second save of the season.
"We did use two of our best relievers tonight against a good team, which I'm fine with," Johnson said about how the Wildcats used their pitchers Thursday after the strong start from Silseth. "It's a long series and you've gotta win the ones that you can and the ones that are right in front of you, but it allowed us to get another day for essentially the rest of the pitching staff. When you're coming off three weekends in a row where we've played four in a row and we have three more this weekend that's gonna be critical to the success we create for ourselves this weekend."
UA will face the the Shockers in the second game of the series Friday night with first pitch set for 6 p.m. MST once again. Freshman right hander Chandler Murphy (2-0) is expected to get the start for the Wildcats.
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