Shox vs. Missouri State

[SPEShockAlum]

Although I'm jumping ahead to next weekend, please do not mistake that for overlooking Evansville this weekend. The purpose of getting this out there now is to remind you to do three things that weekend, some of which requires some pre-work this week:

1) Friday, April 15th - If you get kicked in the groin by Uncle Sam that day, go support Willie Schwanke as he tries to ease the pain with a strong Friday performance and get us off to a good start that weekend.

2) Saturday, April 16th - It's SASO day. Call Susan in the SASO office at 978-5511 to get your tickets/passes to baseball, softball and tennis and come eat hot dogs. You donate - you deserve it!

3) Sunday, April 17th - If you're a season ticket holder to any ticketed sport, you get up to two (2) free tickets to the baseball game that day. Show up.

That is all. Go Shox!

[shockfan89_]

MSU is hitting .309 as a team with a 3.52 ERA and fielding .973. The Bears have really good numbers but half their wins (13) have come versus teams with a 200+ RPI resulting in a 213 SOS (warrennolan.com). MSU has scored 72 runs more than WSU in one less game played. They have two players with 46 RBIs a piece, our top two RBI guys (Troutwine and Tinkham) have 51 RBIs combined. MSU has hit more than twice as many HRs as WSU (43 to 19). They are 21-0 when scoring 6 or more runs and 5-6 when scoring 5 runs or less which means we are going to need our pitching and defense to show up big this weekend.

The Shocks are hitting .271 as a team with a 6.28 ERA and fielding .965. Blah!

MSU is led by SO 3B Jake Burger hitting .385 with 14 HRs and 46 RBIs and SR LF Spencer Johnsons hitting .319 with 13 HRs and 46 RBIs. Below are their top 5 hitters by avg.

                  avg  ab r  h 2b 3b hr rbi bb hbp so  ob%
Jake Burger      .385 135 38 52 7  0 14 46  16 5   19 .462
Hunter Steinmetz .364 129 36 47 9  4 1  12  28 4   16 .488
Blake Graham     .336 110 24 37 6  2 2  26  12 4   22 .408
Spencer Johnson  .319 119 34 38 8  2 13 46  28 1   26 .438
Aaron Meyer      .319 116 22 37 11 0 1  21  9  1   13 .367

On the mound the Bears have solid starters and four quality relief pitchers. As a team MSU has 303 SOs in 286 innings. The relievers are led by closer (RS)JR Bryan Young who has 8 saves on the year giving up 9 hits and 1 ER in 18.1 innings for a 0.49 ERA and .145 opponent avg. The top four relief pitchers have the following opponent batting averages .139, .145, .178, and .180 in a total of 112.0 IP!!!

Probable Starters:

                era w-l  ip   h r  er bb so 2b 3b hr .avg
Dylan Coleman  3.46 4-2 39.0 34 19 15 16 48 6  1  0  .241
Jordan Knutson 3.47 5-1 49.1 45 20 19 15 52 5  4  2  .245
Austin Knight  2.28 3-0 27.2 18 8   7 7  20 6  0  0  .186

Relievers:

              era w-l  ip  h  r  er bb so 2b 3b hr .avg
Bryan Young  0.49 1-1 18.1 9  3  1  7  23 2  0  0  .145
Jake Fromson 2.08 4-0 34.2 22 9  8  6  34 5  0  1  .180
Sam Perez    3.09 5-0 46.2 30 22 16 12 62 10 1  2  .178
Jake Lochner 3.86 1-0 11.2 5  5  5  12 12 0  0  0  .139

MSU has a very good fielding percentage of .973 which is made even better by the fact that FR SS Jeremy Eierman has committed almost half of their errors (15 of 33). The rest of the Bears have only committed 18 errors in their 32 games.

[1972Shocker]

So to summarize you're saying get ready for a long weekend and 3 more losses. Any rain in the forecast?

[shockfan89_]

So to summarize you're saying get reay for a long weekend and 3 more losses. Any rain in the forecast?

If Schwanke can give us a complete game and we only have 3 errors, 4 unearned runs, and 1 ER we have a shot at stealing one. Bradley split with them last weekend. We need to get 1 win this week. Please! :)

[DUShock]

The Shocks get swept and run ruled in 2 of 3.

[Dave Stalwart]

This will somehow be the one WSU wins...

This is how you Evansville the conference. How often does WSU get an opportunity to do that?

[tru2thaduce]

No Schwanke tonight.strained Biceps per the radio this morning.

[DUShock]

No Schwanke tonight.strained Biceps per the radio this morning.

This is too bad. I hope he heals up.

[Cdizzle]

Pray for rain.

[DUShock]

Pray for rain.

[1972Shocker]

Now if we only had a sprinkler system for our 99.9% artificial turf field.

[1972Shocker]

No Schwanke tonight.strained Biceps per the radio this morning.

That kind of eliminates one of the very few reasons to head out to the Eck.

[WstateU]

Pray for rain.

[1972Shocker]

Sunday's game moved to Saturday as part of a DH starting at 1:00 pm due to threat of rain.

Even Mother Nature is having difficulty helping the Shocks. At least she tried.

[Play Angry]

We are up 3-1 in B5, with runners at the corners and 1 out. Heart be still.

Cody Tyler has given a really nice blue collar effort so far and has wiggled out of every jam. I hope we can pour it on this inning and give him a cushion.