The Missouri State baseball team (13-9) plays game four of its five-game homestand Tuesday, hosting Kansas (15-14) at 7 p.m. at Hammons Field. The game is the first in the home-and-home series, as the Bears make a return trip to Lawrence on May 9.

The Bears took two of three from Northern Iowa in their first Missouri Valley Conference series of the year over the weekend, and play Saint Louis at Hammons on Wednesday at 7 p.m.

THE OPPONENT

Kansas enters Tuesday's game with 15-14 record after dropping its second Big 12 series of the year to Oklahoma State over the weekend. John Allman paces the offense with a .408 average to go with a .520 on-base percentage. Kyle Murphy (.304-2-13) and Ryne Price (.302-4-16) are the other regulars hitting above .300, and the Jayhawks bat .294 as a team.

Tuesday's starter Andres Esquibel is 4-1 with a 4.11 ERA in 11 appearances. The staff has an ERA of 4.49 and a strikeout to walk ratio of better than 2.5:1. Closer Paul Smyth has five saves and a 0.82 ERA in 15 appearances.

Live stats for all Missouri State baseball games will be available at www.missouristatebears.com. Just click "Live Stats" on the left side of the page and select the appropriate game.

Tuesday's game will be on 99.9 FM in Springfield and broadcast live on the internet at www.radiospringfield.com.

Missouri State holds a slight 20-19 edge in the all-time series. KU won last season's only meeting, 19-7 in Lawrence, but the Bears won three straight prior to that.

Missouri State head coach Keith Guttin (Missouri-St. Louis, 1978) is in his 25th season as head coach of the baseball Bears and has a career record of 854-511 (.626). Guttin became the first coach at Missouri State (in any sport) to reach the 800-win mark with the May 11, 2005, win over Kansas at Hammons Field. In 2003, Guttin led the Bears to the NCAA Division I College World Series for the first time in school history. Guttin has been a conference Coach of the Year nine times with three of those coming in the Valley and six coming during the Bears’ years in the Mid-Continent Conference. During Guttin’s tenure, the Bears have made seven Division I NCAA Tournament appearances -- six in the last 12 years.

LAST WEEK

Missouri State opened the Missouri Valley Conference season with a series victory at home against Northern Iowa. In Friday's game, Ross Detwiler struck out 12 Panthers and Brayden Drake hit a solo home run in the second to put the Bears up for good. MSU tagged UNI ace Aaron Jenkins for three more runs in the sixth, and a Panther rally in the eighth was stopped after three runs to preserve a 4-3 win.

On Saturday, the Bears loaded the bases with no outs in the first and Ryan Mantle hit a grand slam as part of a six-run first. UNI tied the game at 6-6 after three, and eventually scored on a passed ball in the 10th to win 9-8.

In the rubber match, Missouri State got seven innings from Jake Shafer and pulled ahead 11-1 after five innings before winning 12-7. Nine players scored runs and eight had RBIs, led by Tanner Mattson's three hits and two runs.

QUICK HITS

Kansas is the last non-MVC club to shut out Missouri State in a Bears home game, winning 2-0 on March 18, 2003. MSU has gone 50 straight games without being shut out by a non-league foe at home.

Ross Detwiler has gone 10 straight starts without allowing more than three earned runs, going at least 6.2 innings in each of those outings dating back to five starts last season. Detwiler has an ERA of 1.18 with 86 strikeouts in 76 innings, while opponents are batting just .136 against him, in those 10 starts.

Matt Frevert is averaging 16.1 strikeouts per nine innings this season, posting a 0.64 ERA with three saves in seven appearances. The NCAA record for K/9 (based on at least one IP per team game) was set at 16.8 by Ryan Wagner of Houston in 2003.

Shane Elenz hit for the cycle with his first four hits of the season (over four games).

According to Boyd's World, among the pitchers who have met the NCAA standard of innings pitched (one per team game), Ross Detwiler ranks second in the country in batting average against (.137)

Missouri State has turned an MVC-best 29 double plays this season and has hit into just 10.

The MSU pitching staff is limiting opponents to a .230 batting average at Hammons Field.

Missouri State is currently tied for the 10th-longest road winning streak in the country at three in a row, according to warrennolan.com

Bears hitters have been hit by a mere 11 pitches this season. For comparison, Boyd's World lists 18 individuals who have been beaned at least 11 times.

Speedy leadoff man Ben Woodbury has wreaked havoc on opposing defenses, reaching base on errors six times already. With the errors factored in, his on-base percentage would jump to .442.

Missouri State hit two grand slams last week, one by Nolan Keane and the other by Ryan Mantle. Prior to Keane's MSU had gone nearly three years without one.

Matt Lawson is batting .500 (13-26) with runners in scoring position and has a team-best eight two-out RBIs.

Missouri State is hitting .307 as a team with runners in scoring position, compared to .235 for opponents.

Opposing hitters are 0-for-20 this season when facing Buddy Baumann with two outs. Teams are hitting .201 against the Bears with two outs on the board.

Tim Clubb lowered his ERA 3.22 and his opponent batting average by 62 points with his shutout of Arkansas State Tuesday.

His complete-game and shutout were the first by an MSU freshman since Brett Sinkbeil versus Indiana State in 2004. Sinkbeil's was in a seven-inning game.

The Bears' offense struck out at least seven times in each of the first nine games, but has only reached that mark twice in the last 13.

Ben Carlson hit two home runs against Arkansas State (3/21) to become the first Bear with two homers in a game since March 3, 2006.

Carlson added a single and a double for 11 total bases, the most since February 2003.