PRIME 9
- Missouri State is riding a season-best six-game win streak and has claimed 10 of its last 11 games overall, out-scoring the opposition by a 78-33 margin over the same span
- The Bears enter Friday's MVC opener with a 69-44 all-time advantage vs. Indiana State, including a 28-19 edge against the Sycamores in Terre Haute; MSU has been victorious in 11 of its last 12 Valley openers and has won or split 10 of its last 12 opening MVC series
- MSU has gone 57-32 (.640) in true road games since the start of the 2015 season; combining their 20-6 (.769) record in neutral-field contests, the Bears have gone 77-38 (.670) away from home over the last four seasons
- MSU leads the Valley in team earned run average (3.07), opponent batting (.225), fewest earned runs allowed (70) and double plays turned (20); Individually, Dylan Coleman paces the circuit in strikeouts (50), while Drew Millas ranks second in RBIs (29) and Jeremy Eierman rates third in both runs scored (25) and home runs (5)
- Ben Whetstone has reached base safely via a hit, walk or hit by pitch in each of the Bears' 23 contests this season; the sophomore first baseman has also been solid in games following a Missouri State defeat, hitting .409 with all four of his home runs and seven RBIs in such outings to help the Bears go 6-0 after a loss
- Eierman has rebounded from a sluggish start to hit .422 with all five of his home runs, 19 RBIs and 10 steals to help MSU go 13-3 since March 3; that stretch included a career-best 11-game hit streak (March 3-20)
- Eierman homered twice and drove in a career-best seven runs in Sunday's 8-2 win over CSUN, climbing to ninth on the Bears' all-time home runs list with the 36th and 37th round-trippers of his career; he trails Ben Carlson in the No. 8 spot by one home run
- Head coach Keith Guttin (1,236) needs six more victories to match the career total of former Southern Illinois coach Itchy Jones for the No. 21 position on the NCAA's Division I coaching wins list
- Missouri State has 68 combined come-from-behind victories over the last three-plus seasons, including nine through its first 23 contests of the 2018 campaign
LEADING OFF
The
Missouri State Bears will open their 28th season of Missouri Valley Conference play this weekend when they travel to Terre Haute, Ind., for a three-game set with the
Indiana State Sycamores. The Bears and Sycamores will open the series with a Noon (CDT) doubleheader Friday (March 30), after impending inclement weather forced several changes to the weekend schedule. Weather permitting, the two clubs will then complete the series Saturday with a single game, also slated for a Noon first pitch.
The Bears (17-6) enter league play on a six-game win streak following Tuesday's 12-2 road win over Kansas. MSU is coming off a perfect 5-0 home stand, including a three-game sweep of CSUN this past weekend. MSU's pitching limited the Matadors to three earned runs in the series to run their home win streak to seven straight games.
Indiana State (14-6) saw its nine-game win streak come to an end with a 5-3 loss to nationally-ranked Indiana Wednesday. The Sycamores have posted wins over several prominent programs, including Oregon and UNLV, and are 4-1 at home this season.
SERIES HISTORY
Missouri State brings a 69-44 all-time edge in the series with Indiana State into Friday's opener. The Bears are 28-19 against ISU in Terre Haute, but the Sycamores have swept each of the last two regular-season series at Bob Warn Field. MSU has exacted revenge in the MVC Tournament, however, going a combined 3-0 against ISU on its home turf in the 2014 and 2016 MVC Championships. The Bears also swept the Sycamores last season at Hammons Field as part of their program-record 18-1 conference finish.
GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS
While the Bears have posted a Missouri Valley Conference-best 17 non-conference wins to date, MSU will shift its focus to league action this weekend on the heels of their historic 2017 run to the Valley's regular-season title. The Bears have won 11 of their last 12 Valley openers and have won or split 10 of their last 12 MVC-opening series. Additionally, MSU is a combined 24-9 in its opening conference series since 2006.
Several Bears will be looking to build on recent individual successes in Valley play as well.
Jeremy Eierman brings a career .317 MVC batting mark into this weekend's series after leading all Valley hitters in runs scored (27) and RBIs (26), while ranking second in both slugging (.797) and on-base percentage (.479) during league action last spring. The All-American also has 14 home runs in 39 career conference games. On the mound, reigning MVC Pitcher of the Year
Jake Fromson is 6-1 with a 2.64 ERA in 21 career Valley appearances, after allowing just two earned runs and striking out 32 batters while walking just two in 26.0 combined MVC innings last season.
ROAD TO SUCCESS
MSU has proven to be hard to stop on the road over the past three seasons, logging a 57-32 (.640) record in such contests. Including their 20-6 record in neutral-field games over the same stretch, the Bears have gone 77-38 (.670) away from Hammons Field since the start of the 2015 season. The Bears went 19-13 in true road games a year ago, after finishing with a program-record 21 wins in 27 road contests in 2015. MSU's 0.857 win percentage on the road represented their best since 1978, when they posted an identical percentage with a 12-2 road mark.
STREAK FOR THE AGES
Missouri State posted its best-ever-start to a Valley season in 2017 as part of its 22-game MVC win streak. The Bears won their first 18 conference games before falling to Illinois State (May 19) in their regular-season finale. With their 8-5 win over the Redbirds on May 18, the Bears ran their regular-season Valley win streak to a league-record 22-straight games, dating back to their May 15, 2016 win at DBU. They surpassed the previous all-time win streak by an MVC club with their title-clinching win vs. Indiana State on May 13, topping Wichita State's 19-game league win streak (1981-82).
SHUTDOWN STAFF
MSU pitching has locked into high gear over the last 13 games, posting a 2.69 team ERA and winning 11 of those outings. In all, nine different Bears hurlers have logged sub-3.00 ERA's over the same span, while the staff as a whole has limited the opposition to a .200 batting mark.
A pair of freshmen have led the charge with
Ty Buckner going 2-1 with a 2.06 ERA and
Connor Sechler logging 7.2 scoreless innings over which he has fanned 13 batters without issuing a walk to go 2-0 with a save. The Bears have given up an average of 3.2 runs per outing and have yielded 10 or more hits just once during the same stretch.
COLEMAN CLIMBING
Junior right-hander
Dylan Coleman picked up his fourth mound victory of the season last Friday with a 3-2 decision over CSUN, matching a career high with 8.0 innings and his second double-digit strikeout performance of the season (11) to claim the ninth position on MSU's career strikeout list (238). Coleman, who fanned an MVC-high 106 batters in 2016, needs five more K's to match the career total of Jon Harris (2013-15) in the No. 8 position, while Ross Detwiler sits in seventh with 244 career strikeouts.
Coleman also needs two more mound victories to crack the Bears' all-time top 10 list for that category. With 18 wins, he trails five different Bears — most recently
Sam Perez (2013-16) — in the 10th spot with 20 victories.
OFF AND RUNNING
As part of their 17-6 start to the season, the Bears locked up their eighth-consecutive .500 or better month of February. Since the start of the 2011 season, Missouri State has gone a combined 43-15 (.741) in February, including a cumulative 28-8 (.778) mark over the last five seasons.
Missouri State has been even better in the month of March, which has traditionally been the Bears' most successful month. MSU, which is 13-4 through its first 17 games in March this season, has gone 48-20 in March over the last four seasons and has logged 15 winning months of March since 2001. Overall, MSU has posted a .633 March winning percentage and finished .500 or better in the month 45 times in 54 years as a varsity program.
IN RARE COMPANY
With Missouri State's 10-5 win over SEMO on March 20, Bears head coach
Keith Guttin moved past former San Diego State coach Jim Dietz into sole possession of the No. 22 spot on the NCAA's Division I career coaching wins list. With a career record of 1,236-765 (.618), Guttin needs six more wins to catch former Southern Illinois coach Itchy Jones in the No. 21 position on the list. Guttin is the second-winningest coach in MVC history, while his win total ranks sixth among all active Division I head coaches.
CARDIAC CUBS
Missouri State has made a habit of eliminating leads over the last three seasons, and their recent home stand highlighted this trend. The Bears rallied for comeback wins in their first three games last week and have now totaled 68 come-from-behind victories since the start of the 2015 season. This year alone, the Bears have rallied for nine wins after trailing the opposition. MSU has been good in close encounters as well, recording a 6-1 mark in one-run contests, including three walkoff wins at home.
With its 10-5 comeback victory over SEMO (March 20), MSU also improved to 6-0 following a loss. The Bears have hit .291 with seven of home runs in those six victories.
Ben Whetstone has been particularly lethal in games following losses, batting .409 and slugging 1.000 with all four of his homers and seven RBIs. On the mound,
Dylan Coleman has posted a pair of wins and a 2.57 ERA in such outings.
EIERMAN ON FIRE
After a slow start to the 2018 season, preseason All-American
Jeremy Eierman caught fire to record a career-best 11-game hitting streak, March 3-20, batting .455 (20-for-44) with three home runs and 16 total runs scored to help the Bears go 8-3 over the same stretch. In addition to his career-best hit streak, Eierman handled 41 of 42 defensive chances and swiped six bases in six tries during the hot streak.
Eierman, who was named MVC Player of the Week for the fifth time in his MSU career on March 19, has been at the forefront of the conversation throughout the fall and leading into the preseason about the Bear with the most promising potential to follow in the footsteps of several recent Major League Baseball Draft picks from Missouri State. The Bears have seen six players selected in the top 10 rounds of the MLB Draft over the last three seasons, including two first-rounders.
The Warsaw, Mo., product shared the No. 5 spot nationally with 23 home runs after turning in an NCAA postseason to remember, helping the Bears to their third Division I Regional crown. Eierman was a unanimous preseason All-America pick and was tabbed for USA Baseball's Golden Spikes Award watch list. He was also named the No. 9 college prospect for the 2018 MLB Draft, as well as the No. 17 overall prospect, by Baseball America prior to the start of the season.
VALLEY FORECAST
With 18 letterwinners returning from last year's 43-20 squad, the Bears were tabbed second in the Missouri Valley Conference's 2018 preseason poll of the league's head coaches. DBU Defending Valley Tournament champion DBU garnered seven of the eight first-place votes and finished with 63 points overall to claim the top spot in the poll.
The Patriots edged the Bears (57 points), who received the remaining first-place vote, while Indiana State (42) and Southern Illinois (35) rounded out the top half of the preseason poll. Illinois State (31) and Bradley finished fifth and sixth, respectively, while Evansville (18) and Valparaiso were slotted into the final two positions in the poll. The league's eight clubs will convene in Dallas at the conclusion of the conference season for the right to represent the Valley in the 2018 NCAA Tournament.
BEARS ON TAP AT BUSCH
Missouri State University and the University of Missouri reached an agreement to add a third meeting to their 2018 baseball schedules and will meet Tuesday (April 3) for a neutral-site contest at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. The addition of the Bears' first-ever game at Busch Stadium also marks the first time the two Show-Me State rivals will square off three times in a season. After their showdown in St. Louis with the Tigers, the Bears will host Mizzou at Hammons Field on April 10, before returning the date with a trip to Columbia for an April 24 game.
