Prime 9
- The Missouri State Bears will host a three-game non-conference series with the New Orleans Privateers this weekend at Hammons Field, beginning with a 6:30 p.m. (CDT) contest Thursday (April 18)
- The Bears own a 1-0 edge in the series, having claimed a 7-2 victory in the only previous meeting between the two schools (March 21, 2017 in Springfield); MSU is 41-21 all-time against the Southland Conference
- 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
- MSU has played the 15th-toughest schedule in the nation according to WarrenNolan.com, matching up against clubs with .500 or better records in 31 of its 36 contests to date, including 13 games against top 50 RPI teams; the Bears are 5-0 vs. teams with sub-.500 overall records this spring
- Bears third baseman Joey Polak has recorded at least one hit or one RBI in each of his last 10 games
- 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 .396 (19-for-48) and has reached safely in 13-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 10-game his streak into the weekend; Whetstone has hit .412 (14-for-34) over the course of his 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 are teaming up with MSU football to benefit the Jane Pitt Pediatric Cancer Center at Mercy Hospital Thursday, with both teams wearing gold shoe laces on that evening in support of those battling pediatric cancer
Leading Off
The
Missouri State Bears will look to their six-game slide this weekend, when they host the
New Orleans Privateers for a three-game non-conference set at Hammons Field. The Bears and Privateers will open the series with 6:30 p.m., games both Thursday (April 18) and Friday (April 19), before concluding the weekend with a 2 p.m., contest Saturday (April 20).
The Bears (11-25) dropped their sixth-straight game Tuesday with a 14-6 setback to Mizzou, dropping to 14 games under the .500 mark for the first time in 14 years. MSU scored four in the ninth inning, but could not overcome a pair of five-run innings by the 21st-ranked Tigers, who notched their third-straight victory in the series.
New Orleans (18-19) is coming off a midweek win over cross-town rival Tulane despite coughing up an eight-run lead. The Privateers dropped two of their three Southland Conference games at McNeese last weekend and had lost three of their previous four contests prior to their 15-10 win Tuesday.
Series History
The Bears claimed the only previous meeting in their series with the Privateers, a 7-2 victory at Hammons Field on March 21, 2017.
Austin Knight tossed 7.0 shutout innings, as the Bears scored four times over the first four innings, then broke the contest wide open with a three-run seventh. MSU is 41-21 all-time against the current membership of the Southland Conference, including a 2-0 mark this season after sweeping Central Arkansas in a two-game midweek series at Hammons Field in February.
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).
Bearing Up for Pediatric Cancer
Missouri State's football and baseball teams are teaming up on Thursday to support the Jane Pitt Pediatric Cancer Center at Mercy Hospital with both teams pitching in to support local families. The baseball and football Bears will both wear gold shoe laces to raise awareness for those in the Springfield community battling pediatric cancer. Donations will be accepted at all entrances to Robert W. Plaster Stadium for MSU's annual Maroon and White game with a suggested contribution of $1 per guest. Everyone who makes a donation at the football game will also receive a free ticket for the MSU's Thursday baseball game. All money collected will stay local and go directly to families of pediatric cancer patients.
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 26 contests, clubbing 29 home runs. Of MSU's 32 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, seven 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.
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 126 times in the Bears' starting lineup, with five more rookies drawing a total of 17 starting mound assignments in the first 36 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 68 of the clubs' 151 total RBIs and 20 of its 32 home runs. Sophomore transfer
Joey Polak has started all 36 games at third base, hitting .340 with seven multi-hit games in MSU's last 14 outings. Additionally,
Mason Hull and
Dakota Kotowski have recorded multi-homer games for the Bears in 2019, with Kotowski entering the weekend 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.
In Rare Company
With Missouri State's 4-2 win over Indiana State at the 2018 MVC Championship, Bears head coach
Keith Guttin moved past Jack Stallings for sole possession of the No. 20 spot on the NCAA's Division I career coaching wins list. With a career record of 1,270-801 (.613), Guttin needs just one more win to catch legendary Miami coach Ron Fraser (1,271) in the 19th position on the chart. Guttin is the second-winningest coach in MVC history, while his win total ranked fifth among all active Division I head coaches entering the 2019 season, his 37th at the Bears' helm.
What A Relief
While the Bears have held a lead in just 17 of their 36 contests this season to date, the Missouri State bullpen can boast of a recent track record of locking down victories. Dating back to May 2014, the Bears have claimed victories in 161 consecutive games in which MSU has taken a lead into the ninth inning, including a perfect 9-0 mark in such contests this season. The Bears bullpen has posted an uncharacteristic 6.90 staff ERA through the first 36 games, but two mainstays from last year — sophomore closer
Connor Sechler and senior lefty
Davis Schwab — have combined to post a 3.28 ERA in 46.2 innings of relief with 60 total strikeouts.
Road Warriors
MSU has been nearly unstoppable against non-conference competition over the last four seasons, compiling an 92-58 (.613) record in regular-season games versus non-league foes since the start of the 2015 season. The Bears, who have won 40 of their last 60 regular-season non-conference home games, outscoring their non-league opponents by a 826-542 margin at Hammons Field over the same stretch.
Bears on Radio
Once again in 2019, Meyer Communications is slated to provide live radio coverage of all 54 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.
