Two weeks into the season for the Arizona State softball team, two things have emerged as constants for the 10-2 Sun Devils.

&raquo 1: Put Hillary Bach in the pitcher’s circle, and the other team doesn’t score.

&raquo 2: Put Bailey Wigness at the top of the lineup, and the runs come in bunches.

Bach, the senior pitcher, has opened the season 5-0 and has yet to allow a run in 321/3 innings.

On Tuesday she was named the Pac-12 Softball Pitcher of the Week after throwing shutouts against Central Michigan and Minnesota, notching 11 strikeouts and allowing nine hits in 13 innings.

“It’s an incredible honor,” Bach said of the award.

“I don’t work for the accolades, but it’s cool to be noticed and know that your hard work is really paying off.

“I feel strong and confident (this season), and I’ve just been ready to play.”

Wigness, a sophomore who has been asked to fill a variety of roles this year, including second base, left field and designated player, has hit leadoff for ASU in its past four games, a span in which it scored 40 runs.

Wigness has 14 hits in 21 at-bats and leads the team in hits, batting average (.667) and runs (14).

She has been so locked in at the plate that coach Clint Myers repeated a phrase he used earlier in the week in the hope that she would continue her red-hot start.

“Don’t wake her up,” Myers said.

Bach and Wigness have been the catalysts for a six-game winning streak that finds ASU running smooth on all cylinders after a 4-2 start.

The Sun Devils have outscored opponents 55-5 in those six games, a streak that includes four shutouts as well as four games that were shortened due to the mercy rule.

Next up for the team is a four-game home series with Central Connecticut starting Friday at 7 p.m., continuing with a doubleheader Saturday night and ending with a game Sunday at noon.

A familiar face will be looking out from the visiting dugout over the weekend, as former ASU standout Katie Burkhart was named Central Connecticut’s pitching coach before the season.

Burkhart played for the Sun Devils from 2005 to 2008 and holds many career team pitching records, and Myers said her presence will be a boon to Central Connecticut.

“They’re going to know everything that we do, so we’re not going to surprise them with anything,” he said.

“We have to go out and play our brand of softball, regardless of (the opponent).

“It doesn’t really matter who you play. The formula has got to stay true if you want to be successful, and it’s worked for us in the past.”

Amid what could be the greatest shooting season of his career, Suns guard Steve Nash is having more trouble with the unguarded straightaway 15-footer than usual.

Nash entered Wednesday night with 87 percent free-throw shooting. That was 13th-best in the NBA, but it is Nash’s worst clip since the lockout-shortened 1999 season, when he made 82.6 percent of his free throws.

“I just haven’t had a great rhythm at the line and just missed more than I usually would,” Nash said. “That’s it. I don’t really worry about it because I feel like I could get hot, so to speak, and make a bunch, but it’s been a little bit of a struggle for me.”

Nash has passed Mark Price four times for the NBA career free-throw percentage record but needed 24 consecutive makes entering Wednesday to get it back. Price shot 90.4 percent from the free-throw line for his career, and Nash entered Wednesday at 90.3 percent. Golden State’s Stephen Curry, at 90.0, is a potential threat.

Nash talk

Nash told the Associated Press that he “definitely would re-sign with the Suns,” meaning he would consider the possibility after he becomes a free agent in the off-season.

But he said if the Suns do not want to pay his worth, they would be doing so “at their own peril.”

On how much longer he will play, Nash said, “When people ask me, I just say I can play a couple more years. I could say three more years. Who knows? Maybe five. I think I could play a long time if I want to.”

Nash hosted soccer stars Thierry Henry and Rafa Marquez, in town with the New York Red Bulls, for Wednesday night’s game.

Redd’s load

Suns guard Michael Redd has continued pregame treatments and workouts even as his playing time has increased over the past three weeks.

“Coming back to this season has been a challenge, as far as coming back to a compressed schedule rather than an 82-game schedule,” said Redd, who has had two knee surgeries. “Having not played, I’m kind of thrown into the fire, but they’ve done a great job of easing me in and getting me used to playing again.” It’s all been a process.”

15,000-mile tour

Last year, Terence Gelke, Bryan Shaw and Ben Bjurstrom drew ESPN attention at a Suns home game against the Knicks when they wore Carmelo Anthony Knicks jerseys before he was traded there.

It also was the night they came up with the idea to start the social-media site fancloud to aggregate sports news.

They came full circle Wednesday, returning to a Suns game as one of 100 sporting events they are visiting during a 15,000-mile van trip.

This time they brought a sign for Golden State regarding former Warriors guard Jeremy Lin, now a star with the Knicks. It said, “Oops.”

It would be hard to imagine a more excruciating coaching experience than watching Grant Hill play good defense, only to have Golden State star Monta Ellis spin backward and blindly sink a fadeaway for the win with one second to go.

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But Suns coach Alvin Gentry already had endured the worst earlier in Golden State’s 106-104 victory at US Airways Center, where it had lost its previous 13 visits.

Given a chance for some momentum going into the All-Star break, the Suns (14-20) showed up late to their own party. The Suns played their worst first quarter of the season, falling behind 39-22 to put that at the forefront of a furious coach’s mind more than a last-second Channing Frye misfire at the horn.

“The game was lost in the first 10 minutes of the game,” Gentry said. “When we’ve got an opportunity to do something good and we come out like that, it’s just ridiculous. It’s unfair to the fans in the stands. The way we approached the game sucked. Yeah, I said sucked.

“Because what we do is exactly what I said would happen after the first timeout. We would dig ourselves a hole, and then we’d have to play so hard to get back, it’d (have to) be a perfect storm.

“I’m disgusted with the way we played. I’m disgusted that we’ve got a chance to (enter) the break on something really upbeat and positive, and instead we just walk through the first 10 (expletive) minutes of the game.”

The Suns rotated between sloppy, off-target and asleep defensively to fall behind 7-0 and then 21-9 and 36-17 before the quarter was over.

It actually was the second unit that operated better offensively in the first half, when starting point guard Steve Nash committed five turnovers.

The starters fell into a 59-45 halftime hole, the Suns’ ninth double-digit halftime deficit of the season.

They lost all nine, but none more dramatically than Wednesday, when Frye and Marcin Gortat combined for 37 second-half points to wipe away the lead.

The last of the Suns’ 26 second-chance points gave them a lead twice before they fell behind 104-100 with 1:23 to go after their first turnover of the half — an errant Hill pass.

A Frye follow slam and Gortat steal set up a Hill drive that tied the score with 11.6 seconds to go, but Ellis, who had struggled against Hill with 30 percent shooting over the previous five games, hit the winner with one second to go.

Ellis scored 26 in a game that Golden State (13-17) had lost guard Stephen Curry to a foot injury in the first half.

On the Suns’ first attempt at a final inbound, Frye appeared open for a lob before Hill called timeout on a play designed for Shannon Brown.

The second play found Frye in the corner for an off-balance miss with his foot on the line.

“We have to decide what kind of team we want to be.” Gentry said. “Do we want to be a tease where we win a couple games and then we decide to not play the first 10 minutes? Or are we going to be a team that bears down and tries to grind this thing out so that we can get back in the playoff race?”

Frye led the Suns with 22, and Gortat added 21 points and 15 rebounds for the Suns’ first four-game streak of 20-point games since Jason Richardson had one in 2010.

“I know why Coach is frustrated, and that’s on us,” Frye said. “We play so much better when we were aggressive. In the first half, we were passive. We need to step it more if we’re going to make this run.”

View from press row

Suns center Robin Lopez goes into breaks well, such as last season’s finale and Wednesday night’s final game before the All-Star break. Lopez had more fouls (10) than rebounds (three) in the previous five games but posted a six-point, three-rebound effort in the second quarter that cut a 17-point Warriors lead to nine. But coach Alvin Gentry justly stuck with Marcin Gortat and Channing Frye for the entire second half. They do have a week off now.

Report

Key player

Golden State guard Monta Ellis scored 26 points, including the game-winning shot with one second to go.

Key moment

The Suns’ worst first quarter of the season (39-22) put them in the tough predicament.

Key number

13 Consecutive Golden State losses in Phoenix until Wednesday night’s game.