Starting 9
1) The Missouri State Bears (4-3) wrap up their season-opening eight-game road trip Wednesday with a 4 p.m. game at 2022 NCAA champion Ole Miss (4-4) before opening the home schedule March 1-3 with a series against Arkansas State (8-0). MoState and A-State meet at 3 p.m. Friday, 2 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday, with a $3 ticket special in place for Friday's opener.
2) Missouri State has won its last five home openers and is 14-6 in openers at Hammons Field. The Bears are 31-10 under
Keith Guttin in home openers and 46-14 in program history.
3) The Bears have homered in 68 of the last 81 games, including streaks of 29 and 21 games, and rank 18th nationally with 208 long balls since the beginning of the 2022 season. Early 2024 returns have the Bears ranked 69th nationally with nine homers through Feb. 25, with at least one long ball in six of seven games.
4) Missouri State's bullpen has been solid through seven games this year, combining for a 2.29 ERA and .193 opponent average over the course of 39.1 innings. A total of 12 Bears' pitchers have made 27 relief appearances, with 10 of those sporting an ERA of 3.18 or lower when pitching in relief.
5) Missouri State is picked to finish second in the Missouri Valley Conference this season by the league's coaches, with
Garrett Ferguson,
Taeg Gollert,
Zack Stewart and
Brandt Thompson earning preseason all-Valley honors. Indiana State is picked to repeat as league champs, with Evansville, the Bears and Murray State rounding out the top four. D1Baseball tabbed Stewart as its preseason MVC Player of the Year, Thompson as the Pitcher of the Year and
Caden Bogenpohl as the Freshman of the Year.
6) Missouri State went 33-23 last season and finished second in the Missouri Valley Conference with an 18-9 league mark. The Bears' 18 MVC victories tied their recent high-water mark for league wins. MoState also won 18 Valley games in 2018 (18-3), 2017 (18-1), 2015 (18-3) and 2008 (18-6), and has not exceeded that total since going 19-12 in 2004.
7) The Bears have 36 road games on the schedule in 2024, which would be a school record. Missouri State's highest total of true road games came in 2003 with 33, which included six in postseason play on the way to the College World Series.
8) Three Division I All-Americans dot the 2024 Missouri State roster. Stewart and Ferguson each made multiple Freshman All-America teams in 2023, while junior captain
Nick Rodriguez was a Collegiate Baseball Freshman All-American following his rookie season at Charleston Southern in 2022.
9) Head coach
Keith Guttin announced in November his plans to retire after the 2024 season, his 42nd in charge of the Bears. He ranks second among active coaches and 12th overall with 1,377 career wins. Among active skippers, Guttin trails only Danny Hall of Georgia Tech (1,384). Guttin also played for the Bears in 1976 and 1977 and served as an assistant coach from 1979-81, making this his 47th season with the program.
Series Histories
The Bears are 3-1 all-time against Ole Miss and have not played the Rebels since 2005, a neutral site loss in Houston, Texas. Missouri State owns victories in Oxford in 1991, 1992 and 2003, and went 1-2 in the Oxford Regional in 2018 with a victory over Saint Louis and two losses to Tennessee Tech.
    Missouri State is 48-29 against Arkansas State with a 23-9 record in Springfield. The Bears have won the last three meetings in Springfield. Arkansas State was the opponent for the first two games in MSU baseball history. A-State won a doubleheader in Jonesboro by scores of 5-3 and 16-3 on March 14, 1964.
