The top-ranked Sun Devil baseball team has a chance to etch its name into the Arizona State University history books tonight. With a win, the Sun Devils can improve to 21-0 on the season and tie the 1961 Devils for the best start to a season in school history.

ASU, which plays California at 6:30 p.m. today at Packard Stadium to open PAC-10 play, narrowly escaped a rallying Houston squad to lock down a 6-5 win last Sunday and keep the perfect record intact. The normally dominant ASU pitching staff held the Cougars to two runs over the first eight innings before Jake Barrett allowed three runs in the ninth.

With two outs, the Devils turned to Jordan Swagerty, who retired the only batter he faced to pick up his seventh save.

Former Sandra Day O'Connor infielder Zack MacPhee led the Devils in the game, going 2-for-4 with a double and three RBI. Buckeye graduate Kole Calhoun also knocked in a run in the game.

Despite the scare, the Sun Devils appear to be running on all cylinders going into today’s game. As a team, ASU is batting .362 and scoring nearly 10 runs a game. The pitching staff has an ERA just below three and is striking out over three times as many batters as it walks.

ATH for Wednesday:

Kenzie Fowler is pitching lights out as a University of Arizona freshman, leading the Wildcats to a 25-3 start.

The former Canyon del Oro and Desert Thunder ace hasn’t missed a beat since transitioning to the college game. In her first college outing, Fowler pitched a complete-game, one-hit shutout against Purdue. She struck out eight and walked two.

Thus far this season, Fowler is 16-2 with a 0.78 ERA. Opponents are batting only .127 off of the young righty, and just eight of the 46 hits she has allowed have been for extra bases. Additionally, Fowler has shown an exceptional ability to throw strikes, striking out 156 while walking 46 in 107.2 innings.

Fowler even manages to lose well, as evidenced by the Wildcats’ 2-1 loss to Virginia on Sunday. After allowing a walk and a home run in the first inning, Fowler shut down the Cavaliers for the rest of the game and pitched a complete-game one-hitter. In fact, Sunday’s game was the only one of Fowler’s three losses in which she allowed an earned run.

Fowler is also holding her own on balls put in play. She currently has a 1.000 fielding percentage.

ATH for Tuesday:

With only three years of minor league ball under his belt, former Phoenix Thunderbird High School and ASU second baseman Eric Sogard is performing at a high level as a non-roster invitee at the Oakland Athletics camp this spring.

The Athletics have no proven second baseman on the roster behind veteran starter Mark Ellis, and Sogard is making his chance this spring count. In 16 at-bats this, he is batting .313 with one double, one triple and four RBI.

Thanks in large part to an impressive walk to strikeout ratio (five to three this spring); Sogard also carried a .455 OBP into this week as he has walked five times.

“He was always a very talented hitter and he had a very good sense of the strike zone,” said former Thunderbird baseball coach Pat Higgins.

Sogard batted .293 with six homeruns, 51 RBI and 25 doubles for the San Antonio Missions, the San Diego Padres Double-A affiliate. He walked 58 times in comparison to 47 strikeouts.

In 2008, Sogard led the California League with 42 doubles for the High Class-A Lake Elsinore Storm and was named a Baseball America High Class-A all-star.

The Padres traded Sogard along with third baseman Kevin Kouzmanoff to the Athletics during the off-season.

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