Buckeye State Baseball

I will be contributing to Buckeye State Baseball now officially, probably writing mostly about the MAC and Bowling Green, but you should check out the website because it's pretty nifty. Especially if your a die-hard baseball fan.

Falcons Continue Hot Streak

On a perfect day in Bowling Green, Ohio the Falcons continued their winning ways beating down the Western Michigan Broncos to the tune of 19-4. Bowling Green had a first round KO of sorts that was reminiscent to the Mike Tyson glory days.

Freshman pitcher Michael Klett of WMU loaded the bases in the bottom of the first by walking the first two batters of the game then giving up a single to Dennis Vaughn. Senior Derek Spencer then threw the first haymaker of the day when he blasted the first pitch he saw opposite field over the wall right beside the scoreboard. The grand slam set the tone for the game and proved that the Falcons were not going to give this game up.

Every single Bowling Green starter scored at least once and had at least one RBI with the lone exception being super Sophomore Jon Berti, who went 3 for 5 with a single, two doubles, two stolen bases, and scored three times.

Bowling Green threw six pitchers to the mound, but starter Nick Bruns earned the win going five strong innings, giving up seven hits and four runs on the day. The five other relievers combined to throw four innings of shutout relief.

Coach Danny Schmitz was pleased with the performance today.

“Three hour baseball games are only fun when your on the winning side of things, and hey, we were on the winning side today”.

The win improves Bowling Green’s overall record to 15-18-1 while Western Michigan falls to 9-27. Nick Bruns gets the win to improve to 2-1 on the season while Michael Klett gets the loss on the day and is now 0-1 for the season.

Even though both teams are in the MAC conference today’s game was considered an out of conference matchup.

Bowling Green On The Rise!

As two-time defending regular season MAC champions, Bowling Green came into conference play this year with lofty expectations. Bowling Green played a really tough out of conference schedule to start the year, facing potential Omaha bound squads Louisville and Kentucky, so when the team started out slow it wasn’t a huge worry for the Falcons.

When the trend continued into conference play however, things weren’t looking very good. Coach Danny Schmitz’s ballclub was reeling, only winning one game in each of the first three conference weekend series matchups for a 3-6 conference record.

Something Changed for the squad this past Friday night however when the Falcons traveled up I-75 to play rival Toledo. Schmitz knew the importance of the upcoming series.

“I just told our guys, hey this is a big series against a rival. This right here determines whether we’re pretenders or contenders this season.”

Oh man did his boy’s respond.

After recently being on the wrong side of a 32-10 affair with Ball State during the previous Saturday, Bowling Green decided to have a scoring spree of their own this past Friday, beating the Rockets to the tune of 20-15.

“That game really knocked the wind out of their sails… they came to the ballpark the next day and weren’t quite as loud and didn’t bring the same emotion we had.” Said Bowling Green Senior Derek Spencer.

Game one not only set the tone for a weekend series sweep of Toledo, but it might end up being a season changing win for Bowling Green. Rivalry games can do that to you sometimes. They bring out intensity sometimes that can’t be brought out any other way, and for the first time this season Bowling Green is looking like a team that deserves the lofty expectations given to them at the beginning of the year.

Red-hot Sophomore Jon Berti added, “It’s been sort of a snowball effect. We know we can win ballgames now… we have to go out and take two out of three in every series from now on.”

Before playing Toledo last year Bowling Green was 7-6 in conference play, but after beating their rival reeled off 12 of their last 14 conference games including beating Toledo to win the MAC regular season crown. After sweeping Toledo this past weekend Bowling Green has set sail on a similar path, improving to 6-6 in conference and only sitting one game back of MAC East leader Kent State (20-18, 7-5).

This upcoming weekend is also huge in determining how Bowling Green is going to finish the season as they travel to Athens to play Ohio University who, despite struggling at the beginning of the season, is 6-6 in MAC play and tied with the Falcons for second in the MAC East.

After winning six of their last seven, including today’s 19-4 beatdown on Western Michigan, Bowling Green might finally have the momentum needed to make a strong second-half push at a third MAC regular season crown. So, to the Buckeye State, watch out because this is a dangerous team that is peaking at the perfect time this season.

Weekend Review: Holy Toledo!

Oh man! I believe Bowling Green State University just swept rival Toledo! All I can say is wow!

The sweep puts Bowling Green into second place in the MAC East standings as of today, putting them in position to play in the MAC baseball tournament.

I'm going to give you the scores and box scores and not much else today because I have a ton of school work to get to right now.

4/16/10

Bowling Green: 20

Toledo: 15

Box Score

4/17/10

Bowling Green: 8

Toledo: 7

Box Score

4/18/10

Bowling Green: 4

Toledo: 2

Box Score

Falcons Blow Past Rockets As Rivalry Heats Up

Bowling Green today showed glimpses of their 2009 form, crushing rival Toledo 20-15 in game one of the battle of I-75. To clue you in on how crazy of a game this was today, the winning pitcher Brennan Smith gave up 12 hits and 9 earned runs in 5.1 innings pitched. And he was credited with the win for the Falcons.

Bowling Green scored two or more runs in six of the first seven innings. The scoring spree started with four runs in the first and second innings, six in the third and two runs in the fourth, fifth, and seventh innings.

Every single Bowling Green hitter had at least one RBI in the game, with catcher Ryan Schlater leading the pack hitting a home run and batting in four runs. Senior Derek Spencer also homered for the Falcons, recording three RBI’s on two hits.

Toledo’s bats were hot as well however, and Dan Sherwood led the way hitting two home runs on the day, recording five RBI’s today. Seven of the nine Rocket hitters recorded an RBI and every single one crossed home plate at least once. Toledo was held scoreless only in the first and ninth innings, but the 15 runs was just not enough to get by Bowling Green on this day.

If Friday afternoon is any indication might want to stop by Scott Park if you live near Toledo because this weekend is going to be a fun one, especially if you love offense.

Bowling Green’s overall record improves to 11-18-1 with a 4-6 record in MAC play. With the loss Toledo falls to 21-11 on the year with an 8-2 record in conference play.

Preview: Toledo

Who have they played?
Coming into this current week Toledo was the #1 ranked team in all of Ohio, ranking 85th in the RPI overall nationally, where as the powerhouse Ohio State team was ranked 87th coming into this weekend. In out of conference play the Rockets have played a fairly week schedule, with a single game against Coastal Carolina (#7 RPI), and College of Charleston (#41) being the only two RPI top 50 teams they’ve played so far. Michigan and Pittsburgh are also two good baseball teams in the top 70 RPI wise that Toledo has played. Inside MAC play Toledo is 8-1, which is tied for tops in the conference with Central Michigan. The most impressive thing about the record is that five of those wins have been against the MAC East favorites Kent State (19-16, 6-3) and Akron (15-16, 2-7).

Key Players
Toledo can really hit the ball, hitting 39 moon shots (too easy) in 31 games as compared to opponents only hitting 24 during the same games. Joe Corfman is hitting .373 on the year with 32 RBI’s and has a .439 On Base %. Chris Dudics leads the team with a .384 batting average and is 9 for 10 in stolen base attempts on the year. Jared Hoying has a team leading 36 dingers on the year and 36 RBI’s while Dan Sherwood has a team leading 37 RBI’s with 8 home runs so far.

The pitching staff so far can be described as dominant. The three expected weekend starters are a combined 10-4 on the year, with Mike Hamann leading the Rockets showing off a stellar 2.47 ERA and a WHIP of 1.01 after seven starts. Kyle Shaw and Lincoln Rassi are not far behind with both pitchers having ERA’s under 4.00 and a WHIP of 1.22 and 1.65 respectively. The bullpen is downright disgusting as well, with four relievers all having an ERA of under 4.00. Matt Suschak is the go to guy however as he has an outrageous 1.66 ERA in 21.2 Innings Pitched over the span of 13 appearances.

Conclusion
Toledo is one of the best teams Bowling Green will see all year and probably the best team in the MAC conference. Toledo can hit and pitch better then anyone in the MAC but sometimes they do have trouble fielding the ball. If Bowling Green is to take the series and win at least two they have to rely on the starting pitchers to go deep into ball games and hope the bullpen holds up. The only way to beat great pitching is to pitch just as good. Bowling Green’s offense also needs to score at least eight runs a game to win. In the battle of I-75 the Rockets clearly have the edge this year, not even close.

Prediction
As much as I would love my Falcons to finally put up a series win in MAC play, I don’t see it happening this weekend. Frankly Bowling Green will be lucky to steal one game from Toledo. If BG can do that they will set themselves up to go on a conference winning streak with lowly Ohio and Miami coming up in the next two series.

Bowling Green Hangs On To Beat Pesky Vikings

Today two schools in BSB territory faced off in a mid week inter-conference game that ended up being one of the better games I’ve seen so far this year. A battered and bruised Bowling Green squad managed to squeak by a young Cleveland State team 6-5 in ten innings. Freshmen Nick Bruns and Patrick O’Brien combined to pitch all ten innings for Bowling Green, tallying eight strikeouts and only recording one walk the whole game.

Bowling Green head coach Danny Schmitz proudly remarked, “Nick and Pat really provided us with a great pitching performance today, and since we only have eleven healthy pitchers at the moment we really needed them to go out and do that.”

Catcher Ryan Schlater started off the scoring blasting a shot over the left field fence to put Bowling Green up 1-0 in the bottom of the second inning and by the end of the third Bowling Green was up 4-1. The Vikings scored two in the seventh and then in the eighth inning Bob Suitca singled into centerfield to score third baseman Kyle Shaffer and tie the game up. The game remained tied until the bottom of the tenth inning when Bowling Green Senior Tyler Elkins of Hamilton, Ohio doubled down the third base line to score Jon Berti and win the ballgame for the Falcons. The win improves Bowling Green’s record to 10-17-1 overall while Cleveland State falls to 8-20 on the season.

Even though Cleveland State lost today their head coach Kevin Kocks was fairly optimistic.

“We’re a young team, we have mostly freshman and sophomores on the roster… I’m encouraged by today because we gained experience.”

When asked about the Vikings past weekend in which they took two games from Horizon League favorite Wright State Kocks had this to say.

“After this weekend (against Wright State) we are building for the future. Wins like that prepare us for the future, building a program takes time... our goals are still to win a conference championship, which is very much still in reach, and to get better everyday.”

Senior centerfielder TJ Blanton went 0-4 on the day to snap a 21-game hit streak. The hit streak was the longest in the MAC and ranked in the top 10 nationally. Patrick O’Brien earned his second win on the season to improve to 2-2 while Pat Shedlock gets the loss to drop his record to 1-3 on the year.

Bowling Green travels to Ann Arbor today to face the University of Michigan (19-11, 4-2) and then to Toledo (21-10, 8-1) this weekend to face their arch rivals. Cleveland State plays Kent State (18-16, 6-3) today and at Valparasio (11-19, 2-1) in a conference series matchup this weekend.