The Missouri State baseball team (19-18, 4-5 MVC) returns to Missouri Valley Conference play this weekend by hosting a three-game set with Wichita State (31-9, 10-2) at Hammons Field. The Bears enter the series on a six-game losing streak, and face a tall order in the 10th-ranked Shockers, who lead the league in both hitting and pitching. WSU has won 13 straight in the series and seven in a row at Hammons Field.
Sunday's game will be televised on Mediacom Channel 14 in Springfield.
THE OPPONENT
No. 10 Wichita State is 31-9 overall and 10-2 in the MVC, and ranks sixth in the nation in wins and road winning percentage (15-5, .750).
The Shockers lead the league in hitting with a .310 average and that improves to .333 in league play. Five regulars hit .309 or better, and the team has belted an MVC-best 36 homers and 15 triples.
The pitching staff led the nation in ERA for a good part of the season and checks in at third this week at 2.61. Shocker hurlers have thrown 356 strikeouts and only 87 walks, and the weekend rotation of Travis Banwart (6-2, 1.91), Aaron Shafer (5-2, 2.91) and Rob Musgrave (6-0, 3.20) rival any trio in the nation. Opponents hit just .222 off WSU pitching, and the team allows 3.2 runs per game, good for third nationally.
The Shocker defense has committed 41 errors in 40 games for a slick .973 fielding efficiency.
LIVE STATS INFORMATION
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.
RADIO INFORMATION
All three Wichita State games will be on KBFL and/or KWTO Springfield. A listing of which game is on which station can be found on page 3.
TV INFORMATION
Two of the three weekend games will be televised. Sunday's contest can be seen on Mediacom Channel 14 in Springfield. The Saturday game with Wichita State will be televised by Metro Sports in the Kansas City and Wichita areas.
THE SERIES
Wichita State leads the all-time series 47-24 and has beaten the Bears 13 straight times. The Shockers are also 7-1 all-time at Hammons Field and enter the series on a seven-game Hammons win streak. WSU swept a three-game series in 2005 and won the final four games of the 2004 MVC Tournament in Springfield.
COACH KEITH GUTTIN
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 860-520 (.623). 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.
EARLIER THIS WEEK
The Bears lost their fifth game in a row Tuesday evening at Hammons Field, falling to Missouri by a 3-1 final.
Mizzou broke a scoreless tie in the sixth when Kyle Mach knocked an RBI single, and MU used four pitchers to five-hit the MSU offense.
Tim Clubb allowed one earned run in six innings, and Matt Frevert struck out six Tigers in two innings of relief.
Matt Lawson doubled and scored in the seventh for Missouri State's only run.
On Wednesday, ninth-ranked Arkansas came to Springfield and ran away with a 16-2 win that matched Missouri State's worst ever defeat at Hammons Field.
The Razorbacks scored five runs in the first and six in the second, doing so on a total of four hits in the two frames, and cruised to the win.
Missouri State notched 12 hits in the contest, but Arkansas played perfectly in the field and issued no walks to limit the Bears' offense. Kyle Paul and Josh Mazzola tallied three hits each, and Dallas Hord recorded his first career multi-hit game in the defeat.
The MSU pitching staff had 10 strikeouts but also handed out 10 free passes as well, and the defense committed a season-high five errors.
QUICK HITS
This weekend marks the third MSU series this season to pit coaches with at least 800 career victories against each other.
In fact, of the 30 active Division I baseball coaches with at least 800 career wins, four reside in the Valley: Wichita State's Gene Stephenson (1,583), Bradley's Dewey Kalmer (989), Missouri State's Keith Guttin (860) and Illinois State's Jim Brownlee (807).
According to the NCAA stats released Wednesday, Missouri State ranks in the top 35 in the following categories:
Seventh in double plays per game (1.2)
34th in strikeouts per nine innings (7.9)
Ross Detwiler appears among the NCAA leaders in the following categories:
17th in ERA (1.73)
23rd in strikeouts/nine innings (11.0)
27th in strikeouts (70)
Detwiler has gone 13 straight starts without allowing more than three earned runs, going at least 6.0 innings in each of those outings dating back to five starts last season. Detwiler has an ERA of 1.41 with 112 strikeouts in 96 innings, while opponents are batting just .158 against him, in those 13 starts.
Detwiler recently moved into a tie for seventh on Missouri State's career strikeouts list. He has fanned 204 batters in his career.
Scott Carroll has pitched 24 innings his last three starts.
Kyle Paul is hitting .415 (27-65) over the last 20 games. The junior has a .441 (15-34) average as a catcher and a .387 (12-31) average as the team's designated hitter over that span.
Missouri State is outscoring opponents 40-13 in the first inning.
Nolan Keane is batting .516 (16-31) in the first inning this season while drawing an additional five walks for a .586 on-base percentage. He has come to the plate 36 times in the first inning.
MSU is 16-1 this season when out-hitting its opponent and 1-14 when recording fewer hits.
Missouri State pitching has not allowed a home run since April 6 against Bradley. The streak spans 64.1 innings and 257 at bats.
Ben Woodbury recently went 83 at bats and 100 total plate appearances without striking out, the longest such streak in the MVC this season. He is ranked as the 79th most difficult batter to strike out in the NCAA.
Ryan Mantle has 13 RBIs in nine league games and 10 RBIs in the first inning this season.
The Bears are 10-1 this season in games decided by five or more runs.
Matt Frevert is averaging 16.0 strikeouts per nine innings this season, posting a 0.50 ERA with three saves in 11 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.
This year's leader is Jess Todd of Arkansas, who is averaging 13.3. Again, Frevert has not logged enough innings to qualify for this statistic.
Frevert has pitched eight separate ninth innings this season, allowing just two hits to go with 14 strikeouts in those appearances.
Tim Clubb's complete-game and shutout against Arkansas State on 3/20 were the first by an MSU freshman since Brett Sinkbeil versus Indiana State in 2004. Sinkbeil's was in a seven-inning game.
After allowing 10 runs in his first outing of the year, Clubb has rebounded to go 4-2 with a 2.36 ERA and a .243 batting average against in 49.2 innings since.
Missouri State has turned 44 double plays this season and has hit into just 22. Second baseman Matt Lawson ranks second in the MVC as a part in 37 of them, and leads the nearest non-first baseman by six.
Opponents are hitting .237 off the Missouri State bullpen overall, and .224 against Bears relievers at Hammons Field.
Tanner Mattson is the Bears' leading hitter in league games with a .375 average.
The Bears tied a school record with five sacrifice flies in the victory against SEMO on April 3.
Missouri State has a .354 (17-48) batting average with the bases loaded. Nolan Keane is 4-for-6 with a grand slam in that situation.
Missouri State is hitting .292 as a team with runners in scoring position, compared to .249 for opponents.
Shane Elenz hit for the cycle with his first four hits of the season (over four games).
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.
Austin Todd has an ERA of 1.50 and opponent batting average of .103 in true road games.
Members of the 1987 Missouri State baseball team will be honored on the field prior to Friday's game. The 1987 squad went 38-14 and was the first team to make the NCAA Tournament in the Division I era.
