Prime 9
- The Missouri State Bears return to Hammons Field to open their home-and-home series with the 21st ranked Missouri Tigers Tuesday (April 16) with a 6:30 p.m. contest
- The Bears own a slim 29-27 series edge against the Tigers, but dropped both of their 2018 games to MU; MSU is 16-10 all-time vs. MU at home, including four wins in their last five meetings at Hammons Field since 2014
- Missouri State's bullpen has closed out 161 consecutive victories — including nine this season — when the Bears have taken a lead into the ninth inning, dating back to May 2014
- Bears third baseman Joey Polak has recorded at least one hit in eight of his last nine games and has reached safely in nine-straight contests
- Polak leads the MVC in home runs (4), RBIs (12) and total bases (23) during league play, while ranking second in walks (7) and third in slugging (.767)
- Junior outfielder Jack Duffy saw his career-best 11-game hit streak come to an end Saturday at Illinois State, but he has still hit .395 (17-for-43) and has reached safely in 12-straight games since March 29
- As hot as Polak and Duffy have been for MSU, perhaps the Bears' hottest bat has belonged to Ben Whetstone, who brings a nine-game his streak into the week after recording three-straight multi-hit efforts at Illinois State over the weekend; Whetstone has hit .433 (13-for-30) over the course of his hit streak
- Missouri State head coach Keith Guttin needs one victory to match the career win total of former Miami coach Ron Fraser (1,270) and move into the No. 19 position on the NCAA's Division I all-time coaching wins list
- The Bears will go green Tuesday when they partner with Mid-America Transplant for their second annual 'Green Up' game during National Donate Life Month, in order to raise awareness about organ, eye and tissue donation
Leading Off
After wrapping up a nine-game road swing, the Missouri State Bears renew their rivalry with the nationally-ranked Missouri Tigers, Tuesday (April 16) evening at Hammons Field. The Bears and Tigers will square off in a 6:30 p.m., contest to open a stretch that will see MSU play 11 of its next 13 games at home.
The Bears (11-24) dropped their fifth-straight game Saturday vs. Illinois State, which put the finishing touches on a Missouri Valley Conference series sweep of MSU by taking both ends of the clubs' doubleheader in Normal.
Mizzou (25-12-1) enters the week on a roll, having taken two of three from No. 8 LSU over the weekend. The Tigers, ranked No. 21 in this week's D1Baseball.com poll, have won five of their last six contests overall.
Series History
The Bears hold a 29-27 edge over the Tigers in a series that dates back to 1975. Missouri State has won six of the last nine meetings, but the Tigers claimed a season sweep of the Bears last spring for the first time since 2012.
Mizzou claimed an 8-6 win (April 10) over the Bears for its first win in Springfield in five years, then registered eight doubles — its best single-game total in 11 years — to help lock up an 8-2 win in Columbia (April 24).
All Good Things...
Missouri State dropped all three games of its MVC series at Illinois State over the weekend, bringing an end to the Bears' remarkable run of unblemished success in league series. The series setback at ISU represented the Bears' first Valley series loss since a May 2016 set against DBU — a string of 17-straight regular-season conference weekends over four different seasons without dropping a single series.
MSU went 44-6 overall vs. league foes during that stretch, capturing back-to-back regular-season Valley titles, as well as posting a conference record 23-game win streak in league games (May 15, 2016 to May 18, 2017).
Bears Go Green
Even though St. Patrick's Day has come and gone, the Bears will go green this Tuesday when they host in-state rival Mizzou at Hammons Field, as Missouri State University is partnering with Mid-America Transplant for the first of two 'Green Up' games during National Donate Life Month in order to raise awareness about organ, eye and tissue donation, while also celebrating organ and tissue donors and recipients. Fans will have the opportunity to learn more about organ, eye and tissue donation and register their decision to be a donor at designation stations on the main concourse at Hammons Field.
Bash Brothers
After hitting just three home runs as a team through their first 10 games of the season, the Bears have experienced a power surge of sorts over their last 25 contests, clubbing 28 home runs. Of MSU's 31 homers so far, 20 of them have come from newcomers to the Bears roster this season, including a team-leading seven by freshman
Dakota Kotowski. Additionally, 12 different Bears have gone deep, six of which have homered multiple times so far in 2019.
In their five games the week of April 2-6, the Bears homered 13 times, including a season-high five round-trippers in their 10-5 comeback win at Southern Illinois on April 5. That performance marked the first five-homer game by MSU since a six-homer game vs. Oral Roberts on April 4, 2010. Kotowski registered his second multi-homer game of the week with two long balls, and
Joey Polak became the ninth Bear in program history to hit three home runs in a game. Another MSU rookie, freshman shortstop
Mason Hull added three homers to the tally as well, including a pair of go-ahead bombs at Murray State (April 3) and another one in the Bears' 13-4 victory at SIU three days later.
Big Ben Chimes In
In addition to serving as a key cog in the Bears' lineup over the past two years, junior first baseman
Ben Whetstone has proven to be one of the top defensive performers in The Valley as well. The Overland Park, Kan., native leads the MVC in double plays turned (24) this season. He also moved into the top spot on the Bears' career fielding percentage chart once again after a strong Valley opening weekend vs. Indiana State. Whetstone's 0.993 fielding mark as a Bear narrowly leads Steve Seal's career percentage as the program's all-time best among all MSU defenders with at least 150 career fielding chances.
At the plate, Whetstone has enjoyed a recent resurgence as well, hitting .388 (19-for-49) in his last 14 games. He recorded back-to-back two-hit games vs. Kansas (March 27) and Indiana State (March 29), then powered up in MSU's victory at Murray State (April 3) to hit his first round-tripper of the season. In that victory, Whetstone reached base safely in each of his final five trips to the plate, tying a Bears program single-game record by being hit by three separate pitches. He followed that performance by logging three-straight multi-hit games at Illinois State last weekend.
So Fresh and So Clean
Missouri State's talented freshman class has wasted little time in making an impression on Bears opponents this season. In MSU's two-game sweep of UCA (Feb. 26-27) in particular, Bears freshmen combined to hit .412 with two homers, 11 RBIs and seven runs scored. On the mound, four rookie hurlers logged a 2.84 ERA with 16 strikeouts over 12.2 combined innings in the series. Overall this season, MSU newcomers have appeared a combined total of 122 times in the Bears' starting lineup, with five more rookies drawing a total of 16 starting mound assignments in the first 35 games of the season.
MSU's group of newcomers has been instrumental in the Bears' run production so far this spring, with six rookies combining to account for 67 of the clubs' 146 total RBIs and 20 of its 31 home runs. Sophomore transfer
Joey Polak has started all 35 games at third base, hitting .367 with seven multi-hit games in MSU's last 13 outings. Additionally,
Mason Hull and
Dakota Kotowski have recorded multi-homer games for the Bears in 2019, with Kotowski entering the week in the No. 3 spot on the Valley's home run leaderboard. On the mound, both
Logan Thomazin and
Forrest Barnes have recorded 11-strikeout performances. Barnes is the lone Bear to turn in a complete-game effort, in which he retired 20 consecutive SEMO hitters on April 2 — the longest such streak by any Bears pitcher in six years.
Bears on the Radio
Once again in 2019, Meyer Communications is slated to provide live radio coverage of all 56 Missouri State regular-season games, plus all Bears' games in the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament and any 2019 postseason play. The broadcasts can be heard primarily on KBFL 1060 AM and 96.9 FM in Springfield with
Art Hains, Ben Goss and Corey Riggs describing the action. An online audio stream is available through KBFL's website via RadioSpringfield.com.
Bears on ESPN
Missouri State University, in conjunction with SIDEARM Sports, launched a new partnership in August 2016, unveiling a reconstructed MissouriStateBears.com, the official MSU Athletics web site. The revamped MissouriStateBears.com will provide MSU fans with improved features and overall customer service. The new-and-improved site uses the latest technology to provide fans with a seamless, robust experience unique to Missouri State University.
In 2015, ESPN and the Missouri Valley Conference announced a 10-year extension to their current media rights agreement that will provide increased coverage of conference events across ESPN platforms through the 2023-24 academic year. Fans can keep tabs on the Bears through The Valley on ESPN. As part of the deal, ESPN, the MVC and its 10 member institutions will work jointly to develop in-house production capabilities at each campus that will provide significant coverage for multiple sports on ESPN+/ESPN3.
