Weekend Review: Eastern Michigan

Bowling Green went into this weekend needing to win this conference series, and unfortunately for them they only won one game. There were a lot of positives to take out of the series though that showed the Falcons are not nearly as bad as their record indicates.

4/02/10

Bowling Green: 1

Eastern Michigan: 4

Box Score

4/03/10

Bowling Green: 8

Eastern Michigan: 9

Box Score

4/04/10

Bowling Green: 4

Eastern Michigan: 3

Box Score

Defense

The defense of Bowling Green is something I have been critical about as of late, but this weekend they only committed four errors in the three games. Now maybe it was because of the fact that Eastern has an infield that is field-turf so the bounces are very predictable, but honestly I don't care because there was good baseball being played and that was very nice. Unfortunately though for BG, Eastern played defense just as well this weekend, only committing two errors in the first game and none the rest of the series.

Pitching

The starting pitching this weekend for Bowling Green was awesome, and just based off of the starting pitching and defense the Falcons should have at least won two games this weekend.

- Brennan Smith went 7.2 innings Friday, striking out six, walking three, and giving up only six hits and two runs (one earned).

- Michael Frank had the worst outing for a starting pitcher, going five innings, striking out three and giving up three earned runs. The main concern is the fact he gave up 10 hits in the five innings, but he got out of jams really well though.

- Kevin Leady pitched the Sunday game and absolutely carried the squad through 7.1 innings, striking out ten, walking just two, and only giving up three runs.

The relief pitching and lack of scoring is what doomed the team though.

- Ross Gerdeman gave up a three-run home run in the 8th inning that put the Eagles up 4-1 in game one. Gerdeman did redeem himself though getting a tough 1.2 inning save Sunday afternoon in BG's lone 4-3 win on the weekend.

- Charles Wooten blew multiple late-game leads Saturday, hitting two batters and giving up six earned runs off of six hits in just three innings of work.

Offense

The wind was blowing out in Ypsilanti this weekend, where seven long balls were hit in the three games, with five coming during game two. I saw at least three home runs leave the park that had it not been for the jet stream at Oestrike Stadium, they would've just been regular fly balls, granted deep fly balls, but just fly balls.

- Interesting development with the lineup, TJ Blanton, argueably BG's best hitter, was moved from his traditional nine spot in the lineup to hit fourth, second, and fifth this weekend.

- Bowling Green was really shut down Friday night, with only TJ Blanton scoring in the 4-1 loss. The game was a pitching duel until the first home run of the series was belted by Eastern DH Matt Skirving.

- Saturday was a slugfest in which Bowling Green had home runs from Blanton, Mark Galvin, and Patrick Martin. The offense was spread out very nicely for the Falcons, as they scored at least one run in the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 9th innings. Unfortunately though the pitching couldn't match the effort they gave the day before, as they gave up 18 hits and nine runs, including a walk off single by Bo Kinder in the bottom of the 9th.

- Sunday was a quiet but solid performance by the offense, as they scored three in the 6th and one in the 7th. Matthew Pitzulo had the best day for BG, going 2-4 with a double and two RBI's.

- TJ Blanton got a hit in every game this series, extending his hitting streak to 17 games which is now the longest active hitting streak in the MAC.

Verdict

Bowling Green is now 8-14-1 overall and 2-4 in the MAC. The hope of winning the MAC is quickly fading and the focus needs to now be on making the postseason MAC championships so they can try to qualify for the NCAA's. The defense looks to be back on track now after this series where the errors were kept to a minimum. This team is a good team and when they can get the pitching, offense, and defense working together they can compete with any MAC team.

Whats Up Next?

Weekday game against the Big 10 dark horse candidate Michigan State. A win over Jake Boss and company would really be impressive and look very good for Schmitz's squad.

The upcoming weekend series is at home (!) which means you can follow along at home on the computer with my liveblog that can be found by clicking the '2010 gameday central' button on the baseball home page, or you can go to this site and scroll down to the bottom of the page.

Ball State (11-15, 4-1) will be taking on Bowling Green on Friday at 3 p.m. Saturday at 1 p.m. and Sunday at 1 p.m. at Stellar Field. My preview of the Cardinals will hopefully be up by Friday. Normally it would be sooner but school is getting down to the end here and I have a lot of work to do.