The Georgia State baseball Panthers host the George Mason Patriots Thursday through Saturday in what should be an exciting weekend series to end the season. The Panthers enter play at 35-18 overall and 15-12 in CAA play. This is good for the 4th and final tournament spot. The Panthers needs to win two-of-three this weekend in order to finish ahead of Delaware in the standings. This will also ensure Georgia State of finishing ahead of Towson and William & Mary. George Mason comes in with the CAA's worst record at 6-21 in conference play and a 20-30-1 record overall.
The Panthers are 6-5 against George Mason under Coach Frady (2007-Present) and have a 3-0 record at home after GSU interrupted George Mason's 10-5 (CAA) season by sweeping them and sending them on a descent in the standings, eventually missing the tournament.
Starting Pitching Matchups:
Game 1 - Current CAA Pitcher of the Week, Will Campbell, will get the start for the Panthers. Will is 8-2 on the season and will be making his 13th start. He has pitched 2 complete games and has an ERA of 2.85. In CAA play Will is 3-2 with a a2.82 ERA. He's pitched 44.2 innings and has a WHIP of 1.07 along with a strikeout to walk ratio of 4:1. Opposing batters are hitting .262 off Will. Will's last outing was in impressive 7-2 complete game victory at William & Mary last Thursday. He allowed only 5 hits to the Tribe.
Game 2 - Coach Frady will hand the ball over to Charley Olson for what we hope is the tournament clincher. Charley is 5-4 with a 3.55 ERA on the season. This will be his 10th start in CAA play and he enters with a 3-2 CAA record and 3.67 CAA ERA. Charley has a WHIP of 1.38 in CAA play and 39 strikeouts through 56.1 innings pitched. Charley's last outing was a loss at William & Mary where he pitched just 3.2 innings and allowed 4 runs (3 earned) off 5 hits and 2 walks. Charley was doomed by a rough 2nd inning.
Game 3 - Justin Malone will take the mound for the 2011 regular season finale. He comes into the game with an impressive 7-1 record and a 4.09 ERA. During CAA games Justin has gone 3-1 with a a 5.16 ERA. He has pitched 52.1 innings and has a WHIP of 1.35. Justin has a strikeout to walk ratio of 3:1 in CAA play. Justin started the final game at William & Mary and earned a much needed team win behind an offensive explosion to start the game. Justin pitched 5 innings and allowed 4 runs (all earned) off 10 hits and 1 walk.
The Patriots starting pitchers are not yet known but I see them likely to be T.J. O'Grady, A.J. Johnson and Ryan Pfaeffle. T.J. is 2-4 with a 5.98 ERA, A.J. is 3-5 with a 5.49 ERA and Ryan is 3-6 with a 7.41 ERA. Neither one of those pitchers has an opposing batting average below .300. Both T.J. and Ryan received the loss at home last weekend against Northeastern and A.J. pitched to a 12-6 victory. The advantage goes to Georgia State if these pitchers are in fact the starters.
***UPDATE*** The above George Mason pitchers are in fact the starters.
Relief Pitching:
Let's take a look at the top 3 most used relievers on both staffs (during CAA play). For Georgia State this would be Jake Dyer, Nick Squeglia and Jeremy Gazerro. They have combined for 43.2 innings pitched and have a combined ERA of 3.75. Jake Dyer leads the way with a 1.29 ERA through 14 innings. Jake has all 5 GSU saves on the season during CAA play. He has thrown 9 strikeouts and only 1 walk. The Panthers also have the benefit of having 1st half season starter Aidan Francis available for relief. The Patriots utilize a larger relief group in CAA games but the top 3 are Bradon Bartlet, Bradon Kuter and Jake Kalish. This group has pitched almost twice the innings as the GSU group, showing the George Mason starters are not throwing deep into games, and have accumulated a 5.11 ERA. Brandon Kuter has 3 saves and Jake Kalish has 2. Kalish has the best opposing batting average against at .246 while both Brandon's have been hit hard at .308 and .362. The Panthers hold the clear advantage when it comes to relief pitching. As for overall, this is a matchup of the CAA's 2nd best pitching staff (GSU) versus the CAA's 3rd worse in George Mason.
Offense:
The offensive matchup between these two teams is much more exciting than the pitching matchup. This series features the CAA's 2nd and 3rd best lineups. Georgia State is 2nd in batting average, hits, on-base pct., runs, RBIs and stolen bases. George Mason holds the 3rd spot for all except being 4th in hits and 10th in stolen bases. Georgia State is batting .312 as a team while scoring 7.22 runs per game. Mason is batting .302 and has scored an average of 7 runs per game. The teams are very even in extra base hits including home runs with GSU at 43 and Mason at 44. The greatest difference in the two clubs is willingness and ability to steal bases. GSU is 89 for 117 attempts and Mason is just 30 for 49 attempts.
The Panthers are being led at the plate by seniors Rob Lind, Mark Micowski and junior Brandon Williams hitting .406, .377 and .368 respectively. Those three combine for 57 of the teams 154 RBIs during CAA play. Rob leads the team with a .644 slugging pct after belting 5 home runs, 7 doubles and a triple in 101 at bats. The Patriots are led by Brig Tison and Dan Schafferman hitting .383 and .366. The home run threat comes from Zack Helgeson who has 15 home runs on the season and is the team RBI leader at 48. Brig and Dan are also the two players who the managers will risk stealing bases with, they led the team in successes and attempts. These two clubs are very evenly matched at the plate. The advantage will go to whatever club manages to get timely hits with runners in scoring position.
Despite the evenly matched offenses, the Panthers are the better team today. However, the Panthers need to approach this game like they're already in the tournament. Double elimination has started already because if they lose two, there will not be a tournament appearance. George Mason has just 6 wins but has managed to beat the other 3 likely tournament teams in the series opener each time. This includes game 1 wins at home against UNC-Wilmington and James Madison as well as a game 1 road win at Old Dominion. George Mason must put up a bunch of runs in order to win games because they do not have the pitching staff to get by on just 5 runs. Out of their 20 wins, they've scored 5 or less runs in only 3 and 2 of which came against out of conference opponent Long Island whom they swept in a 4-game series. In their 6 CAA wins, they scored less than 9 runs only once. This came in a 5-4 win over VCU.
I'm confident the Panthers will find themselves owning the 4th, maybe even the 3rd, tournament spot by the end of the weekend and hopefully clinching tomorrow.
One more important note, this is Senior Weekend at Panthersville. Saturday's 1:00 PM game will be preceeded by a 12:30 ceremony honoring the 15 baseball seniors who are suiting up at home for the final time in their Georgia State career. The list of seniors is: first baseman Theo Asher (Lilburn, Ga.), pitcher Will Campbell (Douglasville, Ga.), pitcher Zach Chastain (Lilburn, Ga.), shortstop Bryan Condotta (Mississauga, Ont.), outfielder Ryan Fleming (Whitby, Ont.), pitcher Aidan Francis (Newcastle, Australia), pitcher Jeremy Gazerro (Calhoun, Ga.), pitcher Wes Grant (Benton, Ark.), catcher Shane Hammond (Kennesaw, Ga.), second baseman Rob Lind (Hartford, S.D.), outfielder Brett Maxwell (Douglasville, Ga.), outfielder Mark Micowski (Haddam, Conn.), pitcher Charley Olson (Largo, Fla.), catcher Carter Sackett (Savage, Minn.) and utility player Aaron Schmitz (Lawrenceville, Ga.).
Thanks to Ned Colegrove of Georgia State Athletics for putting together that list for us.
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