Weekday Games: Cleveland State & Michigan

This week Bowling Green welcomes Cleveland State to the Stell Tuesday and then travels up to Ann Arbor for a game Wednesday. I don't have extensive previews for either but I will put up records and such.

For a preview of the Michigan game however go check an interview Mgoblog.com contributor Formerly Anonymous had with me. In the interview he discusses the matchup and gives a preview of how the game will go.

Anyways. Here are the matchups for Tuesday and Wednesday.

4/13/10

Bowling Green (9-17-1, 3-6)

vs.

Cleveland State (8-19, 2-4)

4/14/10

Bowling Green (9-17-1, 3-6)

vs.

University of Michigan (18-11, 4-2)

I'll be posting a preview of Toledo in the next day or two for everyone. By the way, I would love it if you became a fan of Roll Along Baseball on facebook! Thanks for the support!

Recap: Ball State

Well... Friday and Saturday were both full of facepalm moments for Bowling Green, as they were outscored by a, no joke, 44-15 margin. Ball State put up 32 runs Saturday alone. No lie. The Ball State Cardinals put up 32 runs Saturday and setting a record for the most runs ever scored by an opponent against Bowling Green.

The crazy thing about this weekend was that just as Bowling Green looked like a cellar-dweller this year in the MAC, freshman walk-on Michael Fahle hit a grand slam home run in his first ever collegiate at bat in the bottom of the 9th Saturday which seemed to spark the club and push them to a victory Sunday. Although Saturday was for a long time a lost cause, that home run was the start of nine positively amazing innings for the Falcons. Ball State is a great baseball team capable of making the NCAA tournament this year and while getting one win from this team might sound discouraging, the journey of the weekend might get this team going finally.

4/9/10

Bowling Green: 6

Ball State: 12

Box Score

4/10/10

Bowling Green: 10

Ball State: 32

Box Score

4/11/10

Bowling Green: 9

Ball State: 3

Box Score

Game 1 Recap

After all the baseball I saw Saturday and Sunday, Friday seems like a long time ago. Basically, another bad loss by Bowling Green that followed the same pattern as most of BG's losses. Bad pitching, bad fielding, and hitting that can't capitalize on opportunities. Bowling Green left 12 on base and also committed four errors. The starting pitcher Brennan Smith only threw 2.1 innings, giving up eight hits and six earned runs.

- TJ Blanton extended his hitting streak to 19 games.

- The game lasted 3 hours and 29 minutes. Ouch! I was getting tired just watching the game. It felt like a Red Sox-Yankees game.

- Jon Berti went 3-4 and really had a good day at the plate.

- Ball State's starting pitcher Perci Garner hit 96 mph on the radar multiple times. The kid was a scholarship quarterback for Ball State and walked-on to the baseball team last year. Now he's quit football and is on scholarship for baseball and a draft prospect for this June's MLB draft. He has a mid-80s slider and a nasty curveball that makes hitters knees buckle.

- There were over ten scouts at Friday's ballgame, presumably to see Perci Garner and All-American second baseman Kolbrin Vitek, who is projected to be a 1st or 2nd round pick in the upcoming MLB draft.

Game 2 Recap

Wow. Saturday's game. Wow. I have seen lots and lots of baseball in my life... but I've never seen all the things I saw in one game.

- I haven't seen one team score 32 runs.

- I've never seen 42 total runs scored in a game either.

- I've never seen a pitcher with an ERA of 243.00 until I saw the stat line for pitcher Justin Warrington after Saturday's game.

- I've never seen a player walk up to the plate in his first ever collegiate at bat and hit a grand slam... that cut the deficit from 26 runs to 22 runs.

- This game lasted 3 hours and 21 minutes... somehow beating Friday's game but nonetheless taking forever. This series would've made Joe West cry.

Game 3 Recap

Losing the first two games of this series by a combined score of 44-18 the Falcons had a new look to them Sunday dominating and winning the final game of the series 9-3.

- The team came out and played the best defense I've seen them play this year. Jon Berti and Logan Meisler combined to make at least five outstanding defensive plays that held Ball State to only two runs in the first and one run in the ninth.

- Ball State imploded in the sixth inning, committing all four errors. The team kind of looked tired after the whooping they layed on BG the day before.

- TJ Blanton recorded a hit in every game this weekend extending his MAC best 21-game hitting streak.

- Kevin Leady is the ace of the Bowling Green staff. He now has four of the nine overall wins by Bowling Green this season. He threw 45 pitches in the first inning alone but rebounded to go seven full innings... striking out seven and only walking three despite the fact he got into nine full counts on the day.

What Does This Mean?

Bowling Green drops to 9-17-1 overall and 3-6 in the MAC after this weekend... putting them in 5th place in the MAC East and 10th place overall in conference. To make the conference tournament Bowling Green needs to finish 8th or better in conference. Bowling Green needs to start winning weekend series and it has to start this weekend against I-75 rival Toledo. Unfortunately for BG, Toledo is 8-1 in conference and 21-9 overall, boasting both the best conference and overall records in the MAC.

Bowling Green just doesn't have the pitching depth to keep up with their opponents this year and if the bats don't have a great day the team is going to lose. It's point blank as simple as that.

Preview: Ball State

First off, sorry this preview took so long. I had a lot of school work this week and for the next two weeks I'll be pretty backed up, so posts might be slightly sporadic. I'll still be posting the basics though at least.

How have they played?

Ball State is coming off a tough 12-6 midweek loss to Indiana Tuesday and it 11-16 overall but is 5-1 in conference play. The team is the favorite to win the MAC West this season and so far has backed up the hype taking care of Miami and Ohio, going 5-1 in the two series, two teams they are supposed to beat. The defense is good, having only committed 39 errors in 27 games played, compared to Bowling Green’s 49 errors in 24 games this season. That could play a significant factor this weekend especially since the weather might be chilly, every baserunner will be crucial. One interesting weakness though is that Ball State strikes out a lot. They are second in the MAC with 229 strikeouts so far this season. They rank in the middle of almost every other statistic in the MAC however. The relief pitching has performed very well this season, and the bullpen of Ball State gives them a direct advantage in the later innings over Bowling Green once the starting pitchers have been replaced. This is a solid team that plays to win but is not great. They just get the job done.

Common Opponent

Up to this date Louisville is the only baseball team that has played both opponents. Bowling Green played Louisville in a very cold opening-season series in Kentucky, getting swept by the Cardinals, although the last game was an extra inning affair that the Falcons could've easily stolen. Ball State stole the last of a three game series back in the third weekend of March at Louisville. This was a quality win for Louisville as they were ranked #7 nationally at the time. There aren’t any inter-conference teams to compare these two with yet.

Key Players

Kolbrin Vitek is by far and away the best hitting on the Ball State roster this season, boasting a .413 batting average in 109 at bats. He also leads the team with seven home runs, 31 RBI’s, and a whopping .716 slugging %. He is to the Cardinal lineup what TJ Blanton has been to the Falcon lineup; their stats as of today match up almost evenly. The pitching staff of Ball State has a lot of good pitchers. There really aren’t any dominating top pitchers aside of relief pitcher Morgan Coombs, who has a 2.11 ERA in five appearances and 21.1 innings pitched. That being said, the Cardinals have eight pitchers with significant (10+ IP) playing time that have an ERA under six. Meanwhile, Bowling Green only has four pitchers with such a distinction. If it counts for anything though, Justin Warrington has a 99.00 ERA in two appearances for Ball State, and hasn’t recorded one single out but has managed to walk four and allow four earned runs. Can he please pitch against Bowling Green this weekend please?

Conclusion

Ball State is the type of team I wish Bowling Green would play more like. Efficient defense, efficient offense, efficient pitching. Bowling Green has showed flashes of all three of these things this season… just not in the same game. Hopefully things will turn around for Bowling Green this weekend, but they have to play darned good baseball to do it. If Bowling Green wants to make the conference tournament they need to start winning conference games and weekend series.

Prediction

As much as I would love for my sister on sibs and kids weekend to come down and see a Bowling Green series win, I just don’t see it happening. Ball State will win the Friday and Saturday games while Bowling Green steals the final Sunday game.

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.

How Important Is Defense?

Watching Bowling Green play baseball this past weekend versus Northern Illinois I started to wonder, how big of an issue is defense in the MAC? Both teams committed quite a few errors during the series, espicially Bowling Green who committed nine errors in three games. The Falcons could have probably swept the series if it wasn't for crucial errors at key times which allowed NIU to score nine unearned runs over three games and win two of the three games.

So for the past week in between classes I calculated how many errors per nine innings each MAC team had, compared that with the team ERA, and also threw in the fielding % of each team. I then lined them up in a chart. I also got the data of a few major division one programs and compared them to the MAC teams.

In my "Other Teams" category I threw in Michigan and Ohio State in this area and then a team ranked in the top 30, 20, 10, 3, and the number 1 team in the nation. As you can see the best teams in the nation are all at 1.00 E/9 or below, and the only team in the MAC even close to that number is Miami University, who average 1.27 E/9.

If I were to look at the teams and their E/9 combined with the team ERA, I would have to give the defensive advantage to either Toledo or Central Michigan so far. Of course the strength of schedule has been different for a lot of teams so far so the numbers might not completely accurately represent every team in the MAC but it at least gives us an idea of who plays the best team defense (pitching is included) in the conference.

Miami's 1.27 E/9 is hard to ignore though and it shows that if they can get a strong outing from their pitching they have the baility to play with any team in the conference. Teams like Bowling Green and Ohio though will almost always have to sore more than six runs if they have a chance at winning a ballgame.

I will be doing a post soon on offensive statistics which will probably be more detailed and have a lot more categories in it and then after that I'll be taking a look at both the team offense and the team defense of each squad in the MAC and try to take a stab at who has the best team statistically speaking this year.

Not surprisingly, Bowling Green is towards the bottom of the conference in this category with only Ohio, who is 3-18, beneath them. If Bowling Green wants to make a run at another MAC title this year, the team has to play better defense overall, whether it's a position change for some players or giving the bench more opportunities out in the field something needs to be done. No team can expect to be consistently competitive while averaging 2.28 errors per nine innings unless they have a nasty pitching staff and consistantly hot bats. While the Falcons can hit the ball better than practically every other team, their .316 batting average is good enough for second in the MAC, you can't expect an offense to score 8+ runs a game.

If Bowling Green can pull the defense together and average less than 1.6 E/9 than I believe they can finish the season above .500 overall. That being said however, the turnaround must happen this weekend against Eastern Michigan.

I will try to update the E/9 for every weekend series from now on and track Bowling Green's progress.

Weekend Series Preview: Eastern Michigan

I lived in Ypsilanti for the past seven years so my knowledge of Eastern’s sports is pretty extensive. Basically all you need to know about the athletic department is summed up in one sentence. Eastern is a division 2-caliber athletic department competing in division 1 sports. Losing and a lack of attendance continue to be the staple of a department that is constantly in the shadow of the school six miles away in Ann Arbor. That being said however, the baseball team does have a rich history and actually made the NCAA tournament within the last three years. That was the lone year Jake Boss, now the Michigan State head coach, was there.

How have they played?

This year so far EMU is doing just about as well as any MAC team as they are 10-14 on the year and 2-1 in conference play. Their best win of year so far was an opening day upset of #25 Kansas in the horrendous baseball stadium we call the Metrodome, formerly (thank God) the home of the Minnesota Twins. The Eagles also won the middle game of a series versus the University of West Virginia 23-0. Unfortunately they also happened to lose the other two games of the series by a pretty sizable margin.

Common Opponent

Up to this date West Virginia is the only baseball team that has played both opponents. Even with one very protruding loss to the tune of 23-0(!?), WVU is 3-1 against EMU and BG, beating the Falcons 10-7 just last Tuesday and winning two out of three the weekend before against the Eagles.

Key Players

Eastern only has four players hitting above .300 on the season, with Daniel Russell leading the team with a .362 batting average. Zack Leonard is the big cleanup man for EMU though, collecting 28 RBIs, two home runs, and eight doubles while being the only Eagle to start all 24 games.

There isn’t really any one player offensively who jumps out at you from the statistical data, and from the pitching side things don’t look much better. Steven Young is the only person on the team that has an ERA lower than five, and through only 10.1 innings of work he has an ERA of 0.00. 10.1 innings is not a lot of for a team that’s played 24 games, so calling him the ace of the staff is probably a reach. Junior Corey Chaffins is without a doubt the workhorse of the staff having thrown two complete games in only six starts. He has faced 171 batters in 42.2 innings pitched, and what’s even more remarkable is that the next closest stat line is from Jordan Glover’s 110 batters faced in 25.1 innings pitched. Chaffins has an ERA of 5.48 however and a WHIP of 1.47, which actually is not a terrible whip but not a great one. Brett Cisper (7.71 ERA, 2.20 WHIP) is the team’s closer, having collected four saves already. This staff looks shaky which can only mean good things for a Bowling Green team that’s looking to bounce back from a sub-par weekend series versus NIU.

Conclusion

Even though Eastern has just about as good of a record as any other MAC team, they shouldn’t end up at the top of the league if their lack of pitching continues. If Bowling Green can play good defense this weekend they should be able to score 8+ runs in every game, meaning this should be a sweep for the Falcons. Let me restate that, if Bowling Green is going to be a legitimate contender at the top of the MAC then they need to at least take two in Ypsilanti if not sweep the series.

Prediction

Bowling Green will take two out of the three games this weekend, and improve their record to 9-12-1 overall and 3-3 in conference.

Mac Opener: Northern Illinois Homestand

Well, this is not the way Bowling Green would've liked to start MAC play. The Falcons let errors both defensively and on the base paths kill their chance at winning the series this weekend versus Northern Illinois. Here are the scores of the games this weekend.

By the way, the picture for this post is of the 1959 White Sox jerseys, aka the jerseys that NIU decided to replicate this season. The only difference is the hat says NIU not SOX on the hat. It was awesome for a geek like me.

3/26/10

Bowling Green: 5

Northern Illinois: 6

Box Score

3/27/10

Game 1

Bowling Green: 7

Northern Illinois 2

Box Score

Game 2

Bowling Green: 5

Northern Illinois: 8

Box Score

Game One

- My first thought yesterday was, "Wow, this is a better than expected attendance in the stands for the first home series of the year. People really want baseball around here, which is really nice." Ultimately though I'm pretty sure the fans would've been better off staying at home with the poor defensive performance BG put up.

- Unfortunately for Bowling Green the offense couldn't help save the defense and the ridiculous errors that occurred in the field Friday. The infield booted ball after ball, committing four errors during the game. In fact, the first five runs were unearned which in a backwards way helped Brennan Smith work his ERA down. Way too many errors for a team looking to compete for another MAC regular season crown.

- Another killer for Bowling Green is how many people they left on base. They left nine runners stranded on base Friday and pretty much just couldn't pull through. This is a team that will have to score eight or nine at least every time out if they are to guarantee themselves a win. LOB is a statistic that was way too high to win this series against NIU.

Game Two (Game 1 of the Double Header)

- First off, congratulations Michael Frank on earning your first ever collegiate baseball game. The kid pitches like Mark Buehrle, nice and fast paced and he pitches to contact. He will throw strikes so if you don't hit him early, your going to fall behind in the count. This game showed the potential Bowling Green has if they can play good defense behind the pitching staff.

- The offense can and probably will score 6+ runs every game so I'm willing to bet when BG makes two or less errors this year they will have a winning record.

- Jon Berti (three hits), Matthew Pitzulo (two RBIs), and Dennis Vaughn (two RBIs) all had great days at the plate.

- 48th round pick of the Cleveland Indians Troy White of NIU flashed some serious leather at third today, making at least three Web Gem-esque plays. He also stole a base this game. Kid projects to a second base in the majors and is a legitimate player.

- Michael Frank will be one of those consistant pitchers that BG will be able to rely on for the next four years. He might not have the best stuff on the staff, or even have close to the best stuff, but he's just a good solid pitcher who knows how to throw a good game.

Game Three (Game 2 of the Double Header)

- By far the most frustrating game I've seen in person so far. Bowling Green left 17 runners stranded on the base paths today... Seventeen! BG tagged starting pitcher Jeremy Gonzales of NIU to the tune of four runs in the first inning... then didn't score again until the 7th inning. That is frustration at its worst.

- Three more booted balls by BG and that was enough to give NIU enough chances to win the game.

- Extra innings and double headers don't mix well. I was ready for a nap during the 10th inning.

- TJ 'Towering Jacks' Blanton Blasted a ball that cleared the wall well into the fairway on the 16th hole behind the stadium was about one foot left foul pole. The fact that TJ ended up grounding out after that absolutely killed the spirit of the BG dugout.

- If Bowling Green could just convert offensively... or just play good defense for a full 9+ innings they would be such a dangerous team. Bowling Green has a chance to still win the regular season, but they have to figure out their defensive alignment... quickly.

- Troy White of NIU had a great game at the plate and justified his draft selection even more so this weekend. He was without a doubt the most impressive player on the field between the two teams this weekend.

- Right fielder Mark Galvin made some amazing catches today where he had to run full speed into the bullpen and make a catch. Once he even had to avoid a bullpen catcher.

Verdict?

If Bowling Green can pull their defense together, this is a team that is fixing to go on a winning streak. If the defense, mainly the infield, can't pull their act together this is a sub-.500 MAC baseball team. The club will hit the ball but at times plays defense like Jose Canseco.

What's Next?

Weekday game at Dayton and weekend series at Eastern Michigan. I'm not going to post previews for mid-week games so I can focus on the weekend series teams, but I will be posting other nuggets of statistical goodness this week so keep on the lookout.

Shameless Plug

- During any of the home games for BG, visit the 2010 Gameday Central link at the BGSU Baseball site and follow along at the bottom of the page with me as I do a live blog. We had over 20 people today!

- Also, please become a fan of Roll Along Baseball on facebook!