Baseball Preview: GSU vs. Texas Southern

Who: Texas Southern University Tigers, competes in the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC). The TSU baseball team is a veteran squad as they return all three of their weekend starting pitchers (with a caveat) and eight position player starters.

Previous Season: After a 28-24 (.538) regular season record, TSU lost in the SWAC quarter-finals round to Grambling 7-2.

TSU at the Plate: Their .302 BA was good for 4th in the conference and the team leader was sophomore IF Ray Hernandez with a .362 BA. The speedy Hernandez was the team leader in hits, doubles, triples, RBIs and was 18-for-23 in steals. While GSU doesn’t have to be concerned with top pitching coming from TSU, they do have to worry about the top three offensive producers returning this season. Infielders Ray Hernandez and Terrell Jones and outfielder Brandon Mikell should all be in the lineup.

TSU on the Mound: Junior Bryan Smith was TSU’s ace pitcher on the mound with a 7-2 record and 5.07 ERA for the regular season. Fortunately for Georgia State, Smith and fellow starters Mathias Meinte and Adrian Losoya are all out with elbow problems and will not take the mound in the GSU series. We will likely see relievers Dakota Laufenberg (7-3, 3.10) and Able Flores (3-3, 6.91) take the starting roles in games 1 and 2.

GSU at the Plate: Here is the easy part. GSU scored 608 runs last year, 173 higher than the 2nd best team James Madison. In addition, GSU led in every positive offensive category except for triples. With the majority of our starters returning this year and the addition of one of the nation's top recruiting classes, we can expect the offensive onslaught to continue this season beginning with this series against the teams middle-to-bottom of the crop of pitching.

GSU on the Mound: GSU returns starters Aidan Francis (6-3, 4.96) and Charley Olson (5-4, 5.09) this season. If GSU can improve in one area, pitching is it. The 2010 pitching group was in the bottom half of the CAA in ERA, hits allowed, hits/inning and runs allowed. Our bright spot was in strikeouts.

I expect GSU to sweep the Tigers out of Atlanta to start off the season. The Panthers offense will be far too much for the Tiger pitchers that will be taking the mound in this series. I’ll be shocked if we don’t head to Mercer with a 3-0 record.
When more detail comes available on this series I will update with any news or changes to this. Information should become more readily available as the season gets underway.