As most of you know, they are not a bad baseball team. They are 8-3 with wins over Texas A&M and Baylor on the road. However, they have also lost to Kent State, Illinois-Chicago, and Belmont. They're a sterotypical good baseball mid-major.
Against us they, are supposed to start a RH pitcher who is 1-0 with an ERA of 0.00 in a little more than seven innings this year. That same pitcher also has 5 walks vs 3 K's so far, so he has had some control issues this year.
Their lineup is a little bit top heavy with one guy hitting over .400 and then four or five guys hitting .300 and then everyone else that is a regular is hitting below .200. Very typical for early season. They have 12 home runs this year, and their team leader has three, so they have a little bit of pop.
One thing that is in our favor- before they play us, they play Tennessee in Knoxville the day before they play us. Their game with the Vols is at 3:00 ET, so they probably won't get out of there before 7:30 ET or so and then they have to bus to Starkville for a 4:00 game the next day. So, right now their coach probably isn't real thrilled with their schedule maker. What we need to do is hope that they have to play a 18 inning marathon against UT and have to use all of their pitchers and that they get to Starkville at sunrise the next day. That never happens when you want it to, though.
Like most of our non-conference games, I think this is a pretty big game for us. It's games like this that can decide a lot of postseason fates, so we really need to win, because with WKU's quality wins and the fact that the Sun Belt is a pretty good baseball conference this would be a nice notch on our belt. I expect Tyler Whitney to start for MSU, although I haven't seen anything official, so stay tuned there. If he does, it will be good to have a senior going for us in an important game. Also, it will be important to keep our confidence up because we are going to face our toughest challenges so far this weekend in the form of Oklahoma and UCLA, and also those will be our first games away from Dudy-Noble, adding to the challenge.
Against us they, are supposed to start a RH pitcher who is 1-0 with an ERA of 0.00 in a little more than seven innings this year. That same pitcher also has 5 walks vs 3 K's so far, so he has had some control issues this year.
Their lineup is a little bit top heavy with one guy hitting over .400 and then four or five guys hitting .300 and then everyone else that is a regular is hitting below .200. Very typical for early season. They have 12 home runs this year, and their team leader has three, so they have a little bit of pop.
One thing that is in our favor- before they play us, they play Tennessee in Knoxville the day before they play us. Their game with the Vols is at 3:00 ET, so they probably won't get out of there before 7:30 ET or so and then they have to bus to Starkville for a 4:00 game the next day. So, right now their coach probably isn't real thrilled with their schedule maker. What we need to do is hope that they have to play a 18 inning marathon against UT and have to use all of their pitchers and that they get to Starkville at sunrise the next day. That never happens when you want it to, though.
Like most of our non-conference games, I think this is a pretty big game for us. It's games like this that can decide a lot of postseason fates, so we really need to win, because with WKU's quality wins and the fact that the Sun Belt is a pretty good baseball conference this would be a nice notch on our belt. I expect Tyler Whitney to start for MSU, although I haven't seen anything official, so stay tuned there. If he does, it will be good to have a senior going for us in an important game. Also, it will be important to keep our confidence up because we are going to face our toughest challenges so far this weekend in the form of Oklahoma and UCLA, and also those will be our first games away from Dudy-Noble, adding to the challenge.