Panthers Lose Game 1, Face Old Dominion in Loser Bracket Game

The Panthers fell 4-0 to the James Madison Dukes in the first game of the 2011 CAA Baseball Championship. In game 2, UNC Wilmington blanked Old Dominion by a score of 7-0. Georgia State now plays Old Dominion in an elimination game at 12 PM. The loser goes home, the winner will play the loser of the UNC Wilmington vs. James Madison game tonight at 7 PM in another elimination game. Loser games home, winner advances to championship Saturday.

Georgia State lost the season series to Old Dominion with one win in three games. One game was lost on a play at home plate with the Panthers trying to score.

Senior Charley Olson will take the mound at 12 PM against ODU. He pitched for the win in game 2 of the regular season series. Charley pitched 7 innings and allowed just 2 runs on 6 hits. He had 8 strikeouts and 1 walk. The Panthers scored just 12 runs in the 3-game series on 28 hits.

Panthers Baseball Injury Update

Here is a list of current players that are listed as inactive...

OF/DH Joey Wood - Hip
3B/DH Drew Shields - Shoulder
OF Brett Maxwell - Knee
OF Jonathan Kolowich

Catcher/utility player Carter Sackett is limited to DH duties as of now.

The Panthers have played without Wood for the majority of the CAA season. Kolowich has missed the entire season. Brett Maxwell went down in the Mercer game on May 17th. Drew Shields has not played since the William & Mary series. Losing Drew Shields after he replaced Joey Wood is a big loss. Shields was hitting .321 as Wood's backup when he went down.

Panthers face James Madison in Game 1 of the CAA Baseball Championship

The Panthers quest for a 2011 Baseball Championship begins at 3 PM on Brooks Field at UNC Wilmington. The Panthers enter as the 4th (and final) seed to the tournament and will face #1 seed James Madison. The Panthers finished the CAA with a 17-13 record while the Dukes finished at 21-9, 2 of those loses coming at the hands (or paws) of the Panthers in Virginia.

Offensive Comparison: The Dukes and Panthers finished 1st and 2nd in the CAA offensively. JMU has a team batting average of .319 and scored 9.2 runs per game on the season. The Panthers follow with a .305 batting average and 7 runs per game on the season. While the teams tied in doubles, the Dukes have 27 triples to the Panthers 11 and 142 for 180 in stolen bases compared to the Panthers 11 triples and 93 for 121 stolen bases. This shows the base path aggressiveness and team speed advantage that James Madison holds. While the Dukes have a more powerful lineup, the Panthers have a more well balanced lineup with most starter batting averages near or above .300. The Dukes have a greater disparity in the top half and bottom half of the lineup. The top half is above .335 and the bottom half is below .287.

Pitching Comparison: The Panthers lead the CAA in pitching this year with a team ERA of 4.23 and runs allowed per game of 4.8. The Dukes are 2nd worse in the CAA with a team ERA of 5.98 and 6.6 runs allowed per game. One of the Panthers strengths has been the Dukes weakness, the long ball. The Panthers allowed just 25 home runs on the year, just 12 of them from their weekend rotation. The Dukes allowed 62 with 28 coming from their weekend rotation. Since this is a one-game series, the Dukes are lucky in the fact that they have one solid starter in D.J. Brown. Brown went 8-1 on the regular season with a 4.37 ERA. He's a strikeout pitcher accumulating 82 K's (to just 28 walks) through 82.1 innings pitched. He has a WHIP of 1.33 and a .257 batting average against. The Panthers will send Will Campbell to the mound to face the Dukes. Will is 9-2 with a 2.74 ERA. He has limited opposing batters to a .231 batting average and has a WHIP of just 1.03.

This will be a game 1 rematch of the regular season series where the Dukes scored 5 runs off Aidan Francis in the 8th inning to overcome the 6-4 Panther lead and win 9-6. Will Campbell pitched 6 innings and allowed the powerful JMU lineup only 3 runs (2 earned) on 7 hits and a walk. The Panthers scored 6 runs on D.J. Brown in 6.1 innings. Mark Micowski, Brandon Williams, Drew Shields and Carter Sackett all had multi-hit games for the Panthers. The damage from the Dukes came courtesy of shortstop David Herbek who went 3-for-4 with 2 RBI's and scored twice.

I think the Panthers win this game 1 matchup. They should have completed a 3-game sweep on the Dukes during their regular season meeting but a botched relief inning prevented that from happening. The Dukes don't have the arms to keep the Panthers offense from hitting. The Panthers are the only ones who can beat the Panthers in this game, and for that matter I believe that statement is true for the entire tournament. GO PANTHERS!!!

UPDATE, 2:56 PM: The Dukes will hold D.J. Brown for a later game and send Sean Tierney to the mound. Sean is 9-1 with a 3.27 ERA on the season. He's started just 6 games and had 10 relief appearances. Sean pitched 52.1 innings on the season and has a WHIP of 1.36. Sean pitched in game 1 of the regular season series against the Panthers. He went 2.2 innings in relief of D.J. Brown and allowed no runs and just 1 hit. He walked 2 and had 2 strikeouts.

Baseball Panthers Earn 4th Seed in CAA Tournament

Photo Courtesy: CAA

The Panthers ended the regular season on Saturday with a thrilling 10th inning walk-off win at home against George Mason. With the win they clinched a tournament spot but had to wait until play ended on Sunday to know the tournament seeding. At Sunday's end, the top four teams who made the tournament turned out to be James Madison at 21-9 (1st seed), Old Dominion at 19-11 (2nd seed), UNC Wilmington at 18-12 (3rd seed) and Georgia State at 17-13 (4th seed).

Complete final CAA standings here.


The 2011 CAA Baseball Championship will start Thursday, May 26th and a champion will be determined on Saturday, May 28th. The double elimination schedule is as follows:

May 26th
Game 1 - James Madison (1) vs. Georgia State (4), 3 PM
Game 2 - Old Dominion (2) vs. UNC Wilmington (3), 7 PM

May 27
Game 3 - Loser of Game 1 vs. Loser of Game 2, 12 PM
Game 4 - Winner of Game 1 vs. Winner of Game 2, 3:30 PM
Game 5 - Winner of Game 3 vs. Loser of Game 4, 7 PM

May 28
Game 6 - Winner of Game 4 vs. Winner of Game 5, 1 PM
Game 7 - Same two teams (if necessary), 30 minutes after end of Game 6

Georgia State won two of three games at James Madison back in April. The Panthers pitching staff held JMU below their season average of runs per game all weekend and the Panthers offense put up 31 runs on the Dukes pitching staff. As of now, I like Georgia State in this game as the pitching staff is coming off a great series against the 3rd best offense in the CAA (George Mason).

I'll have a more in depth look at how the tournament teams finished in the next couple days and as soon as pitching matchups are available I'll post them as well. Keep in mind these matchups may not be available until game day because the only games currently set in stone are Thursday's game 1 and 2.

GO PANTHERS!!!

Panthers Baseball Host George Mason, Look to Clinch Tournament Spot

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.

Update on Magic Number Heading into Final Weekend

2

The magic number is down to 2 folks! The Panthers baseball team can clinch a tournament spot by Friday. We play George Mason on Thursday, if we win it goes down to 1. Assuming the win on Thursday the loser of the Towson vs. William & Mary game is eliminated. It will take a second win by Georgia State to eliminate Delaware as well as Towson/W&M (whoever wasn't eliminated Thursday). Since Delaware's season is complete we cannot reduce the magic number by a Delaware loss. So all that to say this means we need to win 2-of-3 at home this weekend. The numbers are this way because of the head-to-head tiebreakers. We win it against Towson and William & Mary but lose it to Delaware. We can finish with the same record as Towson/W&M and receive the higher placement but not so with Delaware.

In order for us to leap UNC-Wilmington for 3rd, they'd need to lose 2-of-3 at home against VCU and we need to sweep George Mason. Moving into 2nd would take James Madison being swept at Northeastern and us sweeping George Mason.

The tournament is a 4-team double elimination setup. I think the first round looks like this:

#4 Georgia State @ #1 Old Dominion
#3 UNC-Wilmington @ #2 James Madison

GSU Baseball's "Magic Number" for the Tournament

(No, I haven't lost my mind...but I have you curious right? Read on...)

So it's close enough to season end to throw out the good 'ol magic numbers just for fun. As of right now, Saturday night on May 14th, Georgia State holds the last tournament spot.

First off, winning 1st place is no longer possible. Even if we win out and Old Dominion losses their remaining four games, we lose the head-to-head tiebreaker. Oh well, doesn't matter if you were 1st seed or 4th seed once you hoist the CAA Championship trophy.

In case you don't know what the "magic number" is, it's the number of wins by your team and losses by the team below you is necessary to clinch the stated spot. Since we're just concerned about keeping the 4th tournament position, the first three magic numbers are for that.

To win 4th over Towson - 3 (We need the number of GSU wins and Towson losses to equal 3)
To win 4th over Delaware - 2
To win 4th over William & Mary - 2

Winning 3rd place is still possible. The magic number for that is 5. In addition, 2nd place is still a possibility and to win 2nd over James Madison the magic number is 6.

So, what should you take from this? If we're just concerned about keeping the 4th spot we need to focus on Towson and again, the magic number of 3. (Now you see why the Ghostbuster 3 picture makes sense) We win all three games against George Mason next weekend and we're in. We win two games and Towson losses just one, we're in. By the way, Towson has four remaining CAA games. Tomorrow against James Madison (JMU going for the sweep) and three against William & Mary.

I feel good about the boys returning to Brooks Field at UNC-Wilmington to participate in the 2011 CAA Championship.

Basball: CAA Weekend "What to Watch"

So with just one more CAA series left to play after this weekend we need to look around the league at what needs to happen for us to make the tournament.

Current standings for teams still in contention:
Old Dominion, 16-8 (Tiebreaker over JMU, Towson, GSU, Delaware)
James Madison, 15-9 (Tiebreaker over UNCW, W&M)
UNC Wilmington, 15-9 (Tiebreaker over GSU, Delaware, W&M)
Towson, 14-10 (Tiebreaker over UNCW, Delaware)
Georgia State, 14-11 (Tiebreaker over JMU, Towson)
Delaware, 15-12 (Tiebreaker over JMU, GSU)
William & Mary, 13-12 (Tiebreaker over ODU, Delaware)

This weekend's series that matter to us:

First let me say that I'm going to assume ODU, JMU and UNCW all remain in the top 3. Whichever order doesn't matter, not important right now. For this conversation we're going to look at what needs to happen for us to move ahead Towson and remain ahead of Delaware to get into the 4th position.

Delaware @ Northeastern - I like Northeastern to get a win in this series because of their great pitching. Delaware holds the tiebreaker over us so we cannot tie with them. They currently have one more loss than us so basically we have to remain at the same or less losses than they do to finish the season. This is their final CAA series so we'll know where they stand Sunday night but I think they'll finish at 17-13 meaning we can only lose 1 more. Let's hope Northeastern can pull off two wins to give us some breathing room.

Towson @ James Madison - Towson is hot right now, they are 7-2 in their last 9 CAA games. Towson has one loss less than us right now and we own the tiebreaker over them. At worst, we need to have one less loss than them to finish the season. We have 2 left against W&M and 3 against George Mason (the cellar dweller of the CAA), Towson has 3 against James Madison and 3 against W&M. I like our chances to finish with less losses than them. I think they'll go 3-3 which means we can afford two losses and remain ahead of Towson. However, if Delaware only loses 1, staying ahead of Towson at 2 losses means no tournament.

The tournament standings should be much more clear after this weekend so we'll look at it again on Monday. Enjoy the weekend.

Baseball Panthers Travel to William & Mary

The Panthers baseball team opened a must win series last night with a 7-2 win over the William and Mary Tribe. Georgia State and William and Mary entered play at 13-11 both sitting out of the tournament. The loser of the series can rest assured they will not be visiting Brooks Field in Wilmington for the CAA Championship Tournament eliminating the possibility of a trip to the NCAA Regionals.

Will Campbell set the tone for the Panthers pitching in game 1 by completing a complete game 7-2 victory. This is Will’s second complete game in his last three starts. Let’s hope winning game 1 proves big for this team as their confidence is up going into game 2.

Starting Pitching Matchups:

Game 2 – Georgia State sends senior Charley Olson to the mound who has not lost a decision since April 2nd. He is 3-0 in his last five starts. On the season he is 5-3 with a 3.36 ERA. During CAA play Charley has posted a 3-1 record with a 3.42 ERA. CAA batters are hitting .295 against him and he has a 1.34 WHIP in 52.2 innings. Charley’s last outing was against UNC-Wilmington where he did not factor in the decision after pitching 5.2 innings allowing 7 hits and 4 walks for 3 runs (2 earned). Charley is facing a much less potent offense in William & Mary so I expect to see his WHIP number around his average instead of near 2.0 as it was against UNCW. The W&M starter is Logan Billbrough. Logan has been the ace of the Tribe pitching staff in 2011. He has a 6-2 record with a very respectable 2.53 ERA. He is a strikeout machine with 85 fanned in 81.2 innings pitched and accumulated a WHIP of just 1.11. In addition, Logan has 3 complete games under his belt this season so the guy can eat innings when pitching well. His CAA stats are a 4-2 record with a 2.82 ERA and 2 complete game shutouts. Logan is one of the CAA’s top pitchers this season with the lowest ERA among all starting pitchers and 2nd in the league in strikeouts. Logan’s last outing was against Northeastern where he pitched 7 innings and allowed 6 hits, no runs and 11 strikeouts. Advantage: This is a toss up to me. Both pitchers pitched very well against Northeastern yet Logan Billbrough was roughed up hard by UNC-Wilmington and Charley Olson pitched well against that offense. Billbrough is one of the CAA’s best but Olson isn’t too far behind and Olson is on top of his game at this point in the season. This one is going to come down to which pitcher wants the win more, the mental side of things and I cannot predict that. For the record, if this matchup came 2 months ago I would say advantage goes to Billbrough.

Game 3 – We will see Justin Malone take the mound for the series finale. Justin suffered his first loss on the season (and first in 26 appearances) last weekend against UNC-Wilmington. He is now 6-1 on the season with a 3.88 ERA. The CAA has been a little less friendly to him than out of conference foes as his ERA is a 4.94 in CAA games yet he’s managed a 2-1 record. The CAA is hitting .282 off him and he has a WHIP of 1.26. Justin’s control is outstanding, he has 3.2:1 strikeout to walk ratio. As I said, Justin lost his last outing to UNCW yet it wasn’t too bad of a pitched game. He allowed 3 runs on 5 hits in 5 innings. He was just out dueled by Tyler McSwain for the Seahawks. Justin exited the game down 3-1. W&M will start Matt Wainman. Wainman made his first weekend start last weekend against Northeastern. He pitched six innings and allowed 3 hits and 1 run. He struck out 8 and walked 1 in the process. The Tribe have used 5 starting pitchers in CAA weekend play and the team ERA in CAA play is just 3.91. Advantage: This has to go to Justin Malone because of his experience and solid play throughout the season.

Relief Pitching:

Last weekend was somewhat uncharacteristic for the Panther bullpen as they allowed 10 (of 20) earned runs in the 3 games. It’s been early April against Delaware since the pitching staff performed in such a poor manner overall. The Panthers now only have 1 non-starter with a CAA ERA below 5.00 and that is Jake Dyer. Jake is 1-0 with 5 saves through 11 appearances and a 1.46 ERA. He has 8 strikeouts and just 1 walk in 12.1 innings pitched. Nick Squeglia and Aidan Francis will need to have better outings against W&M if called upon. William and Mary have reliever Brett Koehler who has posted a 1.50 ERA and a 2-0 record with 5 saves through 12 appearances and 30 innings pitched. Opposing CAA batters are hitting only .168 against him. This is another too close to call advantage situation. Recent performance would sway the advantage to W&M but last night’s performance by that bullpen sways it back to the Panthers. The Tribe bullpen gave up 5 of the 7 Panther runs however we did not see any Panther bullpen members thanks to Campbell.

Offense:

Here is where the Panthers solid advantage can come in play IF the team can manage keep the men left on base to a minimum. We can at times be frustrated at the lack of ability to score runners in scoring position yet the Panthers are still the 2nd best offensive team in the league. The runs per game comparison is 4.8 for the Tribe and 7.2 for the Panthers. The Panthers are a more powerful team with 41 home runs and 108 doubles compared to the Tribe’s 16 home runs and 80 doubles. The Panthers also run more often and are more efficient with 83 of 109 stolen base attempts being successful. The Tribe are 61 for 90. The Tribe is hitting .268 in CAA play this season with Tadd Bower leading the team at .362 and 26 RBI’s. The Panthers are hitting their season average in the CAA at .312. Mark Micowski has his CAA average up to .400 with 21 RBI’s. He is also slugging .600. Rob Lind continues to raise his average and be menacing to CAA pitchers as he is hitting .396 with a .626 slugging percentage and an on-base percentage over .500. The clear advantage here goes to the Panthers. They have no problem getting on base, let’s make sure to bring them home boys.


The Panthers have the overall advantage because of their offensive strength. Their challenge is profiting from men reaching base, it has been all season. While the Tribe is not as strong offensively they have managed to go 6-2 in CAA series to this point and have only lost series to James Madison and UNC-Wilmington, both coming by way of sweeps. Georgia State is 4-4 in CAA series this season but has beaten James Madison and suffered the same fate as W&M against UNC-W. The loser of this series will not make the CAA tournament for sure. You better believe that Coach Frady has made the team fully aware of this. We have too many seniors that are hungry for another run in the tournament for these boys to lay down. I expect GSU to take the series, still not sure if the sweep will happen though. Assuming Billbrough goes for the Tribe today, it will be the toughest game up at W&M.

Baseball Panthers Visit UNC-Wilmington

The GSU Panthers baseball teams starts a very important 3-game series with UNC-Wilmington Seahawks today ending Sunday. GSU enters the game with a 33-13 overall record and 13-8 CAA record after sweeping the Hofstra Pride last weekend. UNCW enters play at 24-21 overall and 12-9 in the CAA. The Panthers currently hold the 3rd spot for the CAA Championship tournament and the Seahawks are sitting 5th after being swept by James Madison last weekend.

Starting Pitching Matchups:

Game 1 – Georgia State sends senior Charley Olson to the mound to face Daniel Cropper. Charley is 5-3 with a 3.38 ERA in 10 starts. In CAA games, he is 3-1 with a 3.45 ERA with one complete game against James Madison. Opposing CAA batters are hitting .293 against him and he has a WHIP of 1.27 against CAA play. UNCW’s Cropper is the best starter on paper the Panthers face this weekend. He is 6-2 with a 4.35 ERA and is also making his 11th start. Daniel leads the Seahawks with 60 strikeouts and he’s done it through just 62 innings for a K/IP ratio near 1.0. During CAA play he is 5-2 with a 5.27 ERA. Opposing CAA batters are hitting .294 against him. The Seahawks were rocked in Daniel’s last outing on April 29th at James Madison by a score of 12-2. Daniel pitched just 2.1 innings and allowed 5 runs. Both pitchers have shown good control issuing only 15 walks on the season, Charley does have 4.2 more innings pitched than Daniel but the BB/IP ratio is still very close (.24/IP). Advantage: Georgia State. Olson is pitching hot right now (3-0 in last 4 starts) and Cropper has been inconsistent in his last 4 starts and he gives up the long ball (8 in 7 game starts).

Game 2 – CAA co-wins leader Will Campbell takes the mound for the Panthers to face Travis Bradley. Campbell is 7-1 with a 2.67 ERA overall and is 2-1 with a 2.40 ERA in CAA play. Will has a CAA WHIP of just 1.10 after allowing only 30 hits and 3 walks in 30 innings pitched. Opposing CAA batters are hitting .268 against him. Will is coming off a complete game shutout at home against Hofstra. Hofstra managed just 4 hits off the senior righty. The Seahawk’s Travis Bradley is 1-4 with a 3.41 ERA and is making his 5th start. His last start came at James Madison where he received the loss in a 7.1 inning effort while allowing 6 runs off 9 hits and 2 walks. CAA batters are hitting .320 against Bradley. Advantage: Georgia State. Like Olson, Campbell is also hot. While the Panthers are 2-2 in his last 4 starts, he has allowed just 7 earned runs in those 4 games against lineups including James Madison and Old Dominion. Bradley has only beat Hofstra, no impressive feat and he gives up some hits.

Game 3 – For the final game of the series we’ll see the Panthers send Justin Malone against Tyler McSwain. Justin is undefeated at 6-0 with a 3.76 ERA overall. During CAA play he is 2-0 with a 4.89 ERA. CAA batters are hitting .280 against Justin and he has a WHIP of 1.25. Justin has thrown just 7 walks in 42.1 innings pitched during CAA play. His control has been outstanding all season. UNCW’s McSwain is 3-4 with a 5.22 ERA on the season. He is 3-2 in CAA play but he has an ERA of 6.35 showing he’s received good run support. It’s tough to have a winning record with a 6.35 ERA unless your offense is putting up some runs for you. McSwain is coming off a tough outing against Hofstra after allowing 5 runs off 8 hits and 2 walks in 5.2 innings. CAA batters are hitting .292 against Tyler and he has a CAA WHIP of over 1.60. Advantage: Georgia State. Honestly, I’m being unbiased here. Malone has been a better pitcher all season and as of lately than Tyler McSwain. I think it’s fair to say each one of the Panthers starter has hit a rough spot this season (who doesn’t) but they’re all pitching well right now.

Relief Pitching:

Jake Dyer, Nick Squeglia, Sam Agnew-Wieland and Aidan Francis. That is the list of weapons Georgia State can throw at UNC-Wilmington if needed. Dyer has allowed just 1 run in CAA relief in 10 appearances and earned 7 saves. Squeglia and Francis are basically high quality starting pitchers and Sam has allowed just 22 hits in 27.2 innings pitched and racked up 32 strikeouts in the process. The Seahawks have 2 go-to relievers, Jack Lane and Travis Bradley. Bradley is starting this weekend so he’s out of the picture for any relief effort. Jack has allowed 4 runs in 15 innings of CAA relief. Beyond Jack, the relief pitching is so-so at best with ERA’s over 4.00 and opposing batting averages near or beyond .300. Advantage: Georgia State. The Panthers don’t blow many leads because of a breakdown in relief pitching. The bullpen depth is much deeper on the Panthers side. This goes a long ways in a series where both teams have good offenses such as this one.

Offense:

The Panthers offense has scored 7 runs per game during CAA play while the Seahawks have scored 6.6 and the team batting averages are .318 for the Panthers and .319 for the Seahawks. This shows how evenly matched the offenses are. The teams are scoring by the same methods as well. Slugging percentages are .469 for the Panthers and .474 for the Seahawks. The Panthers have 16 home runs, the Seahawks have 17. The Seahawks hold an edge in the stolen base category with 35 steals in 47 attempts. The Panthers are 26-for-36 in CAA games. Because Saturday holds a double-header, bench depth will come into play and the teams are about deadlocked there as well. The two lineups look similar as far as individual performance. There’s not a weak spot in either lineup and there is no one individual carrying the weight of the team on their shoulders. Mark Micowski leads the Panthers in CAA play with a .425 batting average and he has 19 RBIs. Rob Lind is hitting .397 with 15 RBIs and Ryan Fleming leads with 22 RBIs on 7 home runs and a .299 batting average. The Seahawks are led by Thomas Pope with a .480 average. He has 16 RBIs and 6 stolen bases. Hunter Ridge leads with 21 RBIs on a .371 batting average during CAA play. To summarize here, this is a very evenly matched offensive matchup.

This series is going to come down to pitching strength. The Panthers have the edge in both starting matchups and bullpen depth so I expect a series win. If the Panthers are able to pull off 2 wins at Brooks Field they’ll be sitting in a great position to hold onto their tournament spot. A series loss for the Seahawks may be the last nail in the coffin for their hopes at making the CAA championship tournament. With the remaining schedules for the tournament teams assuming GSU wins the series, it will be tough for the Seahawks to climb back in. Basically, this is a must-win for both teams in order to make the tournament. GO PANTHERS!!!

CAA Baseball Review 5/2/2011

The Georgia State Panthers baseball team is taking care of business in the final stretch of the season. After a series loss to Delaware and Old Dominion many Panther baseball fans were beginning to wonder if the team was going to miss out on the CAA championship tournament yet still win 30+ games. Not so fast says the Panthers. During a time of the season when the Panthers had to win against the teams in their easy schedule, they did so. The Panthers are 5-1 in their last 6 CAA games against Northeastern and Hoftra and appear to be plowing along at full strength. Let's take a look at this past weekend in the CAA.

Like mentioned in my previous post, the Georgia State Panthers completed a home sweep of the Hoftra Pride. Taking a look at what I said would be the CAA impact series of the weekend, we see James Madison swept UNC-Wilmington knocking UNCW from 1st place to 5th place. The top five of the CAA (in order of standings) is now James Madison, Delaware, Georgia State, Old Dominion and UNC-Wilmington.

The biggest gainer in the standings over the weekend is Georgia State, going from 5th to 3rd place. The Panthers are just a half game back from James Madison and Delaware who are tied for 1st. The biggest loser this weekend is UNC-Wilmingon. After being swept by James Madison they find themselves in 5th place looking up at the four tournament spots. The log jam continued to tighten this weekend as the top 4 spots are separated by just half a game from 1st to 4th. UNC-W is 1.5 games out of 1st and 1 game out of 4th.

You can find an updated team vs. team record grid here.

This coming weekend we have CAA series of Georgia State at UNC-Wilmington, Northeastern at George Mason, Old Dominion at Delaware and VCU at Towson. I'm going to call the ODU at Delaware the CAA impact series of the week because currently both teams are in the tournament. The runner-up would be GSU at UNCW. Really both are important but if both go as I see (Delaware and GSU both win 2-of-3) then the top four teams stay the same but Delaware owns 1st, GSU moves to 2nd, JMU drops to 3rd and ODU remains in 4th.

Looking at the remaining CAA schedule, there is a very real possibility we end up with 4 teams locked in at 19-11 to finish the season. This situation favors GSU because currently they have the best overall record and would finish ahead of the other teams in the tiebreaker. One thing is for sure, we're looking at one of the most exciting CAA finishes we've seen in years. Gotta love playoff race baseball!

***EDIT***

My last paragraph has some incorrect information in it. I had a misunderstanding of how the tiebreakers work so let me pass along the correct information.

1. In the event of a tie, the following tie-breaker system will be
used:

a. If one team has won a series versus each of the other tied teams,
they are removed from the tiebreaker and become the highest seed. If one
team has lost a series versus each of the other tied teams, they are
removed from the tiebreaker and they become the lowest seed.

b. Head-to-head competition, if all tied teams have played each other.

c. Winning percentage versus common Conference opponents.

d. Each team’s winning percentage versus the highest common opponent
in the standings and continuing down through the lowest common opponent
in the standings, if necessary.

e. Coin flip if a tie exists among two teams and a draw if a tie exists
among three or more teams.

2. All ties will be broken in descending order. Once ties are broken,
they remain broken throughout the tie-breaker process. When arriving at
a pair of tied teams, the tiebreaker begins anew among those two teams.

So under these tiebreaker rules Georgia State will lose a tie with Delaware or Old Dominion but wins against James Madison. Thanks to Dave Cohen of Georgia State University for finding the tiebreaker rules for us!

Georgia State Sweeps Hofstra Pride

What a great weekend for the Georgia State Panthers baseball team! Not only did the Panthers sweep the Hofstra Pride, but the Panthers were the biggest winners in the standings this weekend.

Quick Weekend Recap: The Panthers starting pitching was hot again this weekend. Great time of year to get on a hot streak too! Aidan Francis was able to get 2.2 innings of clean work in on Friday night. This is great for Aidan, we need him to be back on his game in this final month of play. On Saturday, Will Campbell went the distance for a 4-hit complete game shutout which was the 2nd in 1 week after Charley Olson shutout Northeastern the prior Saturday. That shutout was a school-record 7th on the season. Sunday would see more great pitching from Justin Malone as he went 7.1 innings and allowed 3 runs yet did not factor in the decision. Sunday's 24th home win is also a new record for Georgia State (prior record of 23 completed in 2008 and 2010). Jake Dyer earned two saves over the weekend and the relief pitching did not give up any runs to the Hofstra Pride.

The Panther bats piled up 49 hits on the weekend to produce 31 runs. Mark Micowski and Rob Lind are hot at the plate right now and this team is going to score runs when these two are on their game. Mark went 8-for-12 at the plate with 3 walks and 3 RBIs. Rob went 10-for-13 with 8 RBIs. Another note, Ryan Fleming hit a monster home run over the right field scoreboard and they're still waiting for it to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere. That blast was Ryan's 12th on the season.

The Panthers will travel to Wilmington this coming weekend for an important series with UNC-Wilmington. Hopefully this will be the first of two trips the Panthers make to Brooks Field in May.

CAA Baseball Review 4/25/2011

In an effort to keep everyone informed of the current baseball standings and outlook in the CAA, I'm going to provide a review after each weekend in this final month of play.

Georgia State entered the weekend in 5th place, 2 games back of 1st place UNC-Wilmington, and 1.5 games out of the final tournament spot.

The Panthers took 2-of-3 games this weekend at Northeastern up in Boston. Looking at the standings you would think a sweep would have been nice but we faced some excellent pitching up there so you have to be happy about winning the series.

What happened above us in the standings? UNC-Wilmington won 2-of-3 against Hofstra, Delaware won 2-of-3 against James Madison and Old Dominion won 2-of-3 against George Mason. The Delaware-James Madison series was the first example of teams ahead of us beating each other up and it benefiting us. Thanks to Delaware, we are now .5 game out of the final tournament spot. We still remain 2 games back of the lead held by UNC-Wilmington and a series to play with them. The only change in positions of the top 5 is James Madison dropped from 2nd to 4th with Delaware and Old Dominion each moving up 1 position as a result.

Georgia State currently holds the tiebreaker with James Madison because we won the series against them this season. We lose the tiebreaker with Delaware and Old Dominion because they won the series against us. We have yet to play UNC-Wilmington. I have a feeling head-to-head tiebreakers are going to come into play for tournament seeding this season.

What is that you ask? That's a log jam and also what the CAA looks like right now. There are currently 7 teams within 3 games back of the lead. Even Northeastern who is in 2nd to last place is just 5 games back.

My CAA impact series of the week for this weekend is UNC-Wilmington at James Madison. James Madison needs a series win badly in order to remain in a tournament spot as Georgia State hosts Hofstra and hopefully is able to win 2-of-3. If JMU is able to pull out a win this log jam is going to get even tighter. The last 2 weeks of the season are looking to be very exciting.

Kennesaw State Baseball Visits Panthersville

The 27-11 Georgia State Panthers baseball team hosts the 21-18 Kennesaw State Owls today at 6 PM for the 2nd and final matchup of the 2011 season. GSU defeated the Owls on March 23rd in Kennesaw by a score of 6-3 after a dominant outing by pitcher Will Campbell.

Freshman reliever and recent mid-week starter Sam Agnew-Wieland will get the start today for the Panthers. This will be his 3rd start of the season and he's 2-0 with a 2.16 ERA. Sam has a WHIP of 0.96 and has struck out 29 batters in 25 innings pitched (11 total appearances). Opposing batters are hitting just .202 on him for the season and have managed only 2 extra base hits, both doubles. Sam's wins have come against a powerful Mercer lineup and Alabama State.

The Owls will send sophomore Catlan Kendrick against Sam. Catlan is 1-0 with a 2.78 ERA and will also be making his 3rd start on the season and 11th total appearance. He's pitched 22.2 innings with a WHIP of 1.32 while opposing hitters are batting .274 against him. He' thrown 17 strikeouts on the season. Catlan pitched the 9th inning in the 6-3 GSU win and allowed 1 hit and walked 1 but allowed no runs to score.

The Georgia State lineup is hitting .314 as a team currently led by Mark Micowski who's hitting .369. Sophomore Drew Shields is now hitting .362 and has really stepped up for the Panthers during Joey Wood's injury. The team is scoring 7.7 runs per game on the season. Micowksi, Brandon Williams and Rob Lind all had a 3-hit game against the Owls in March.

KSU is hitting .278 as a team and has scored an average of 6.1 runs per game this season. Ronnie Freeman, who was 2-for-4 in the first game, leads the team with a .367 average. Ethan Herron also had a 2-for-4 day against the Panthers in March and is hitting .328 on the season. Home run leader Andy Chriscaden homered in the March meeting and drove in 2 runs. He still leads the KSU offense with 9 home runs and 45 RBIs.

I expect the Panthers to complete the season sweep over the Owls in front of the home crowd. GO PANTHERS!!!

4/18/2011 Baseball Check-Up

The 2011 season is approaching the final month of play and some people may be starting to sweat the fact that Georgia State is not currently in the CAA Tournament. I'm here to tell you it's OK and I'll explain why. First let's have a look at the standings.

The top 4 teams are currently UNC-Wilmington, James Madison, Delaware and Old Dominion.

Full current standings here.

Georgia State is currently sitting at the 5th spot in the standings. Unfortunately the 5th spot is the first team who misses the CAA Tournament. Fortunately we've played just 15 of 30 CAA games and the division is tight this season so the order of the top seven teams can look completely different after this coming weekend. Putting too much thought into the conference tournament right now is like worrying about your favorite MLB team (Braves) and their status in the playoff race at the MLB All-Star break. As anyone who understands baseball will say, baseball is a marathon, not a sprint.

Before reading further, look at the current team vs. team grid here.

Let's focus on the top four tournament teams for now as they're the ones we need to either A) beat or B) receive help from other CAA teams. Of the current four tournament teams, GSU has played three of them leaving with a 4-5 record in the nine games. The remaining top four opponent is UNC-Wilmington which we will play at Wilmington the first weekend in May. UNC-W has played just one of the other three current tournament teams, Delaware, and won just 1-of-3. They're 5-1 against the worst two teams in the CAA which GSU has yet to play.

UNC-W, JMU, DEL and ODU all have 2 CAA series remaining against each other. UNC-W has five remaining in total and the other three have four remaining. For this fact alone there is going to be movement within the top four. Teams will get better and teams will get worse.

Here are the CAA winning percentages of each team's remaining opponents. Notice Georgia State has the easiest remaining road. The top three teams remaining CAA opponents have a winning percentage over .500.

GSU 0.436 (5th Place)
TOW 0.436 (7th Place)
ODU 0.472 (4th Place)
W&M 0.475 (6th Place)
NE 0.484 (10th Place)
GM 0.511 (11th Place)
DEL 0.522 (3rd Place)
UNC-W 0.533 (1st Place)
JMU 0.544 (2nd Place)
VCU 0.544 (8th Place)
HOF 0.569 (9th Place)

Luckily we have the opportunity to play nine of our last 15 games against the bottom three teams, Hofstra, Northeastern and George Mason. Hofstra and only won series against Towson (we swept them) and George Mason who has three total CAA wins in 18 games. Northeastern won against VCU (we lost 2-of-3) and Hoftra. George Mason has yet to win a CAA series and has been swept in three of their six CAA series. This should make you feel better. Only ODU gets to play even two series against these teams and UNC-W, JMU and DEL get only one.

So what do I think will happen? I think GSU goes 11-4 in the remaining CAA games. This leaves us at a 19-11 CAA record. We need just one of the top four teams to lose at least four games and we're in. It's likely that this happens to more than one team and we move up a couple spaces. We probably finish 2nd or 3rd thanks to head-to-head tie breaker. Keep in mind first place is not out of the question by any means. The schedule is in our favor right now.

Baseball Panthers Host Old Dominion in CAA Series

The Old Dominion Monarchs come in for a 3-game CAA series today through Sunday. The Panthers are coming off one of the biggest road series wins in team history as they defeated JMU in Virginia in 2 games of the 3-game series. The Monarchs are coming off a home series win against Towson where they scored only 11 runs and allowed 8 against the weak Towson team.

The Panthers enter at 26-9 overall and 7-5 in CAA play. The Monarchs are 17-17 overall and 9-6 in CAA play. Old Dominion currently holds the 4th spot in the CAA which happens to be the final tournament spot and Georgia State is in 5th. Here's the best case scenario for Georgia State with the top 6 CAA teams. Delaware wins the series against Towson, I'd say Delaware losses but I'm being realistic here. GSU sweeps ODU, completely possible and I'll get to that in a minute. No sweep in the UNC-Wilmington vs William & Mary series. James Madison is off in CAA play this weekend. This scenario would leave us in 2nd in the CAA. We would have the same winning percentage as Delaware but we lose the tie-breaker to them since they took 2-of-3 against us. On to the preview.

Who: The Old Dominion Monarchs compete in the CAA with Georgia State. ODU is 17-17 overall and 9-6 in CAA conference play.

History/Common Opponents: Old Dominion leads the all-time series by 9-8. The Panthers are 7-6 against ODU under Coach Frady and are 2-1 at Panthersville. The home series win came in the CAA championship season of 2009. Last year the Panthers won 2-of-3 in Norfolk, VA. The two teams share 3 common opponents thus far in the 2011 season. James Madison, VCU and Towson.

JMU: GSU won 2-of-3, ODU won 2-of-3
VCU: GSU lost 2-of-3, ODU won 2-of-3
Towson: GSU won 3-of-3, ODU won 2-of-3

Old Dominion at the Plate: ODU is hitting a CAA-low .248 at the plate, almost 40 points below the league average of .286, and scoring 5.3 runs at the plate. The team has shown some power but not as much as the Panthers with 28 home runs. 10 of these have come from the bat of infielder RS-Jr. Josh Wright. Josh also leads the team with a .723 slugging percentage as he has 9 doubles and 4 triples. In addition, he leads the team with 13 stolen bases in 15 attempts. Bottom line, keep people off base in front of him and keep him off base. Josh is the only Monarch hitting above .300, but 1B Christopher Baker and OF Nathan Hartman are hitting .299 and .297. Christopher is the teams RBI leader with 35 and he’s tied for the most strikeouts at 32. Joshua Wright seems to be the offensive spark so keep him at bay and you’ll limit the damage their offense can do. There’s not much power or speed beyond him.

Old Dominion on the Mound: Pitching has been ODU’s saving grace for the poor offense this season. Their team ERA is 4.59 and they’re allowing 5.5 runs per game. Looking at the ODU pitching stat line is almost the exact same as the GSU version only we’ve allowed about half a run less per game. Starters as follows:

Kyle Hald (Sr., LH) – Kyle is 5-2 in 8 starts with a 2.78 ERA and a 1.22 WHIP. He has 71 strikeouts in 55 innings pitched and batters are hitting only .214 against him.

Ben Tomchick (Jr., RH) – 5-3 in 8 starts with a 3.04 ERA and a 1.35 WHIP. 44 strikeouts in his 50.1 innings pitched including 1 relief appearance. Batters are hitting .264 against him.

Phil McCarthy (Jr., LH) – Phil is 4-3 in 8 starts with 2 complete games. His ERA is a 4.41 and has a WHIP of 1.51. He’s thrown 32 strikeouts in his 51 innings pitched. Batters have the most success against him out of their weekend starters as they’re hitting .304 against him.

The Monarchs have an excellent relief pitcher in Dean Ali. Dean has made 14 relief appearances and 3 game starts accumulating 40 innings pitched. He’s allowed just 6 earned runs in those 4o innings for a 1.35 ERA. He has a WHIP of 1.1 and opposing batters are .234 against him. These pitchers, like GSU, do not give up the long ball. Again, this is a very evenly matched pitching game.

GSU at the Plate: The Panthers are hitting .316 as a team and scoring over 8 runs per game. If you read my post from earlier in the week it’s clear this is a top 10 offense in the NCAA, much more than ODU can say about their offense. Brandon Williams is now the team batting leader hitting .379 with Mark Micowski and Brett Maxwell on his heals at .366 and .363. The Panthers offense is more balanced than ODU. ODU has one real threat. The Panthers can hit, steal and knock runs in up and down the lineup. Ryan Fleming is still the RBI and home run leader with 42 RBIs and 11 home runs. The GSU offense will face one of the better pitching staffs they’ve seen this season so I expect a series average around 7 runs.

GSU on the Mound: The Panthers have a team ERA of 4.42 and have allowed 5.2 runs per game. Starters as follows:

Will Campbell (Sr., RH) – Will leads the CAA with a 6-0 record in 7 game starts. His ERA is 2.91 and he has a 0.95 WHIP. Opposing batters have been nothing but frustrated when facing will this season as he’s allowed just a .199 batting average. He has 31 strikeouts in his 46.1 innings pitched.

Charley Olson (Sr., RH) – Charley is coming off a complete game win against James Madison last Saturday. He has evened his record at 3-3 with a 3.59 ERA and a 1.3 WHIP. Opposing batters are hitting .283 against him and he has 40 strikeouts in 47.2 innings.

Justin Malone (Jr., RH) – Justin is 5-0 with a 4.53 record. He is coming off a good outing blemished by one bad inning against the powerful James Madison offense. He allowed them 5 runs in 5.1 innings. Justin has a WHIP of 1.5 and batters are hitting .324 against him.

Look for Nick Squeglia, Jake Dyer and Sam Agnew-Wieland to provide relief for the starters this weekend. All three have been nothing short of outstanding in their contributions to the pitching staff this season. The three have ERAs of 2.97, 1.86 and 2.16 respectively.

If you’re into pitching this series is for you. Because of the great advantage the Panthers hold due to their offense, I see no reason why a series win will not happen. A series sweep is within reach if the Panthers pitchers can keep ODU’s Josh Wright from causing much damage. The Panthers have too many offensive weapons for ODU to overcome. Look for the Panthers to be back in a tournament spot after Sunday. Let’s hope this forecasted rain doesn’t cause us to have any issues on the field or with games being canceled. GO PANTHERS!!!

A Look at GSU Baseball in the NCAA Rankings

Photo Courtesy of the NCAA

I was looking over the NCAA statistics this morning and kept running across "Georgia St." at or near the top of many offensive catagories so I wanted to toot the horn of the team, the guys below and the coaching staff. The following is where the team ranks in all of NCAA...

Runs Scored: 4th
Runs Per Game: 9th
Walks: 3rd
Team Batting Average: 13th
Team Slugging %: 7th
Doubles: Tied for 1st (with Georgia Tech)
Hits: 7th
Home Runs: Tied for 9th
Stolen Bases: 12th

Now for some individual rankings...

Rob Lind: 4th in Walks
Brett Maxwell: Tied for 30th in Doubles
Mark Micowski: Tied for 16th in Hits
Ryan Fleming: Tied for 6th in Home Runs

It is also worth mentioning Will Campbell is tied for 11th in wins.

It's a great thing to be able to tell people "Georgia State baseball is one of the best offenses in the country", when you're trying to get them out to a game. Oh yeah, we have some pretty darn good pitching to boot. Come out and see this high power offense in a very important 3-game series with Old Dominion this weekend, Friday through Sunday. Game times are at 6 PM on Friday and 1 PM on Saturday and Sunday.

GSU Baseball Goes Round 2 with Alabama State

Photo Courtesy of MEACSWACSports.com

GSU is coming off a huge series win at James Madison and looks to continue momentum as they host always bat-friendly Alabama State today. This is the 2nd matchup of the two teams at Panthersville this season. The first meeting was back on March 15th when the Panthers clubbed the Hornets 14-4 in a staff pitching game. The Panthers enter today's game with a 25-9 record, being the fastest team to hit 25 wins on the season in school history. The Hornets enter at 11-16.

The Hornets bring a struggling and weak offense with a .264 team average but are scoring 6 runs per game in a hitting friendly league. However, only 1 starter with over 20 starts is hitting over .300 and a couple are flirting with .200. They have hit only 8 home runs and are slugging just .353 as a team. Jordan Mims has been the offensive crutch hitting .326 in 27 games with 12 RBI's, 2 doubles and a triple. The Hornets like to use their speed on the bases as they have 75 steals on the season in 89 attempts which is 3rd best in the NCAA. (Prior opponent James Madison is leading and GSU is tied for 12th.)

The starting pitcher is not yet known but the team ERA is 5.52 and they're allowing almost 7 runs per game this season. The Hornets have used 8 different starting pitchers this season with only 2 receiving at least 6 starts. The majority of their most frequently used pitchers are pitching around either 4.00 ERA or 6.00 ERA. No matter who is on the mound, the Panthers bats should have no problem connecting well with the ball.

The Panthers enter today's game with a .319 team batting average and slugging .489 as a team with 5 offensive regulars hitting above that mark. They've pulled their runs scored per game average up over 8. Look for Brett Maxwell to have a big game against this out-of-conference opponent as he's done all season hitting .483 outside the CAA. Ryan Fleming has been on a home run tear with 5 bombs in the last 6 games. I'd expect Ryan to send another ball over the left-center fence this evening. The Panthers should put up big runs for the 2nd time this year on the Hornets.

Freshman Sam Agnew-Wieland gets his 2nd start of the season today. He earned a win last week against a strong Mercer offense while pitching 5 innings and allowing just 3 runs off 5 hits and a walk. Sam has made 9 relief appearances, 2nd most on the team. Opposing batters are hitting only .243 off Sam and his WHIP is a 1.36. Certainly outstanding numbers for a true freshman, Panther fans (including myself) are ecstatic to have Sam on the team.

The Panthers pitching staff is coming off a great series where they held the NCAA's highest scoring offense to 18 runs in 3 games, nearly half their runs per game average. In fact, of the top 15 highest scoring offenses in the country, GSU has faced 3 of them going 5-1 in the 6 games and have held them all to around half their runs per game average. Those three teams are Mercer, Georgia Tech and James Madison.

Today's game should be two things for GSU. First it will be a game for the offense to keep their hitting eyes tuned up before a very good pitching team in ODU comes to Panthersville for a very important 3-game CAA series. Second, this should be a staff pitching game meaning it's an intentional "tune-up" outing for many guys. Sam will probably go 3 or 4 innings and then give way to another 3-5 pitchers to get work in. GO PANTHERS!!!

Panthers Baseball at James Madison in CAA Play

Veterans Memorial Park @ James Madison University

This weekend's series features the expected 1st and 2nd place finishers in the CAA baseball standings for 2011 and will be a battle of the leagues best two offenses. The Panthers travel up to Virginia to take on the James Madison Dukes baseball team. With 3 out of 10 CAA series in the books for the season and a 5-4 record after such, this series is a must win series for the Panthers. The Dukes are tied for the lead in the CAA with a 10-5 record (.667 winning %). Of the five teams ahead of Georgia State (JMU, Delaware, UNCW, W&M and ODU) 4 including JMU are on the remaining schedule. This is good news because the Panthers have some control over their own destiny. It will take a series sweep for the Panthers to jump ahead of JMU in the standings.

Who: The James Madison University Dukes compete along with Georgia State in the CAA. They enter the series with a 21-9 record and 10-5 in the CAA. JMU returned 5 everyday starters from their 2010 team that finished 30-23 and 1st in the CAA at 18-6. A .750 CAA winning percentage will be tough to obtain as they would have to win 13 of the remaining 15 CAA games. With GSU, Delaware and UNCW on the schedule, I don't see this happening.

History/Common Opponents: JMU leads the all-time series by a dominate 14-2 advantage. Coach Frady has not been able to crack JMU as he's only 1-8 against them while at Georgia State with the lone win coming at home in Panthersville. GSU and JMU share 1 common opponent so far on the season, VCU. The Panthers lost 2-of-3 at home against VCU by scores of 11-8 (win), 6-10 (loss) and 8-17 (loss). The Dukes won 2-of-3 at home against VCU by scores of 12-8 (win), 2-4 (loss) and 4-1 (win). The Panthers scored more runs than JMU did against VCU however they also allowed more runs than JMU.

James Madison at the Plate: JMU enters the series 4th in NCAA team batting average, 2nd in runs scored (10.5 per game) and 1st in home runs and home runs per game. The Dukes are led offensively by 2010 standouts David Herbek (SS), Jake Lowery (C) and Alex Foltz (OF) whom all three are slugging over .600. David is hitting .385 with 12 home runs and slugging .812. He is 2nd on the team with 42 RBIs. Jake is hitting .379 with 16 home runs and 49 RBIs with a .911 slugging percentage. Alex hits .378 with 6 home runs and 22 RBIs, slugging .671. The Dukes have 58 home runs and are slugging .596 as a team, batting .338. Not only does the team have power but they have speed as well. They are 97-for-115 (85%) for stolen bases which is best in the CAA (and NCAA) over Georgia State by 34 stolen bases.

With all that said, this offense was only able to put up 16 runs in 3 games versus William & Mary one month ago. Georgia State and William & Mary are the CAA's leading pitching staffs and are very similar statistically. More on this in the pitching preview.

James Madison on the Mound: To say a team with a 21-9 record has a weakness sounds crazy, but pitching is the Duke's weakness. They are 2nd to last in the league with a 6.67 ERA and are allowing 7 runs per game. JMU pitching has allowed opposing batters a .284 average and have a WHIP of 1.7 which is tied for 2nd highest in the CAA. One of the major issues for JMU has been walks allowed. They are giving batters a free base nearly 6 times per game this season.

Weekend starters as follows:

Alex Valadja (Sr., LH) - Alex is 3-2 with a 7.50 ERA in 7 starts. He's pitched 42 innings and allowed 36 runs on 51 hits and 20 walks (WHIP 1.7). Opposing batters are hitting .304 against him and he's allowed 6 home runs. Alex pitched 7 innings and received the loss against VCU after allowing 4 runs off 7 hits and 3 walks. He threw 125 pitches in the outing so coach isn't afraid to leave him out there while he's pitching well. VCU score 1 run in the 2nd and 3rd and then he coasted until the 8th inning.

D.J. Brown (So., RH) - DJ is 4-0 with a 5.91 ERA in 7 starts. Similar numbers to Alex only he's allowed 16 walks and batters are hitting .293 against him. He's a strikeout threat with almost 1 per inning thus far. DJ pitched a complete game against VCU and earned the win while allowing only 1 run (unearned).

Evan Scott (Jr., RH) - Evan is 2-2 with a 5.40 ERA after 7 starts. Evan has had walk issues this season allowing 34 free bases in 38.1 innings pitched. However, batters are hitting just .231 against him. His numbers output a 1.7 WHIP. Evan pitched 4.2 innings against VCU and allowed 3 runs (all earned) off 3 hits and 3 walks.

The JMU relief staff has been more a weakness than the starters. They don't have a shut-down reliever so runs are possible after knocking out the starter. Their most effective reliever so far has been Trent Cundiff who's appeared in 10 games going 12.2 innings and allowed 8 runs. He has a 4.97 ERA and batters are .298 against him. The other go-to guys are Josh Futter (5.23 ERA), James Weiner (5.32 ERA) and Nick Slogik (5.91 ERA). The 7th inning has not been friendly to the pitching staff as that's their highest run total allowed with 32 runs allowed.

GSU at the Plate: The Panthers offense enters with a .319 team batting average and is tied for 2nd in the NCAA in doubles and 6th in runs scored. The offense is scoring almost 8 runs per game this season. Brett Maxwell and Brandon Williams still lead the team with a .408 and .386 batting average. Brett is slugging .602 and leads the team with 13 doubles on the year and a .492 on-base percentage. Mark Micowski is hitting .354 with 25 RBIs and Ryan Fleming is leading the team with 9 home runs and 35 RBIs. Joey Wood has been out with a minor back injury and was missed in the Delaware series, I'm trying to confirm his status for this weekend.

GSU on the Mound: The Panthers still have one of the best pitching staffs in the CAA. The team ERA of 4.40 is good for 2nd, behind W&M at 4.24. The Panthers are allowing 5.25 runs per game and opponents are hitting .270 against them. Weekend rotation as follows:

Will Campbell (Sr., RH) - Will gets a shot at the weekend rotation here giving Aidan Francis the chance to be used as a relief pitcher. Will takes the mound Friday with a CAA best 6-0 record. He is one of just 19 pitchers in the NCAA with 6 wins and one of just 13 with at least a 6-0 record. Will has 2.90 ERA and opposing batters have been dumbfounded at the plate hitting only .180 against him. His WHIP is currently 0.89.

Charley Olson (Sr., RH) - Charley has a 2-3 record yet just a 3.72 ERA. Charley has been plagued by lack of offensive support and defensive miscues. He is striking out almost 1 batter per inning and has allowed only 10 walks. Charley's WHIP is 1.34. Charley had a good outing against VCU going 6 innings and allowing only 2 earned runs however 4 runs were scored due to 5 Georgia State errors. He allowed just 1 walk and struck out 8 in the game. His last outing at Delaware was another that should have resulted in a win yet he was stuck with the loss after going 7 innings and allowing 5 runs (4 earned) due to 4 errors behind him. He walked just 1 and struck out 6.

Justin Malone (Jr., RH) - Justin will take the tail-end of the weekend with a 5-0 record. His ERA is 3.99 but batters have caught on to him recently as they're now .327 against him. He's struggled a little as of lately but had a decent game at Delaware. He went 5.2 innings allowing only 3 runs (2 earned) with no walks and 7 strikeouts. Justin has shown excellent command in his pitches this season as he's allowed just 7 walks in 38.1 innings. Even though Justin has had some shaky outings (against arguably good offenses) recently the Panthers are still 6-1 in the games he's started.

This is a tough series to call. It's a powerful and fast offense vs. great pitching (JMU vs. GSU) and a greatly efficient and relatively less powerful and fast offense vs. league low pitching. More times than not good pitching wins the battle against good hitting. William & Mary showed that good pitching can calm the offensive giant known as JMU. They allowed only 16 runs to the JMU bats and could have taken the series but they didn't (and still don't) have a good offense. They were able to score only 11 runs against the same group of starters we'll see this weekend. The Dukes scored 10 of their 16 runs in the final 3 innings against poor relievers so the W&M starters did a great job at keeping JMU at bay. We have equal if not better starters going against JMU this weekend so I expect at least the same by us.

I love the fact that Frady is giving Campbell the start today. He has earned it and Aidan needs a game to rest his head and start having fun again. I'm sure he'll still pitch in the series in a relief role.

Georgia State is still the "complete package" in the CAA with VCU and UNC Wilmingon being the next closest thing to it. On paper, GSU should be able to score more in this series than JMU because we both have good offenses but we're by far the better pitching team. Our pitching bests theirs by a bigger margin than their offense bests ours. Last note here will be about defense. Our infield absolutely must play clean baseball. They committed 6 errors against VCU and 5 against Delaware. You cannot give this JMU offense that many free passes here.

We need 2-of-3 here but that still won't put us back above JMU, a sweep is the only way to do that this weekend. Winning less than two is not an option. Go get 'em boys. GO PANTHERS!!!

Panthers Baseball Travels to Delaware for CAA Series

After trouncing the Florida A&M Rattlers at home on Tuesday by a score of 16-0, the Georgia State Panthers face Delaware in an important CAA 3-game series. This is a battle for 1st place because of winning percentages. James Madison, UNCW, Delaware and GSU are all tied for 1st in the CAA due to each team having a .667 CAA winning percentage. Georgia State still leads in overall record at 21-6. GSU is 4-3 in games away from Panthersville this season.

Who: The Delaware Fightin' Blue Hens are a fellow CAA team who enter the series with a 13-12 record, 6-3 in the CAA. So far this season Delaware is on pace with their 2010 record, winning 52% of their games finishing with a 27-24 record and 9-15 in the CAA.

History/Common Opponents: GSU is 7-5 all-time against Delaware (since 2006) and Coach Frady is 5-4 against them. The Panthers last faced the Blue Hens in the 2009 Championship season where they took 2-of-3 in Newark. The teams have not faced any common opponents to-date in the 2011 season.

Delaware at the Plate: Delaware enters the series near the bottom of the CAA in most offensive categories. The team is hitting .258 and is scoring 5.5 runs per game. They've had flashes of power with 13 home runs through their 25 games yet have not been aggressive or effective in stealing bases as they have 11 steals through 18 attempts which is good for last in the CAA. Senior Pat Dameron, usual 2-hole hitter, leads the offense with a .370 batting average and is second with 19 RBI's. He also leads starters with a .492 on-base percentage and is 4-4 in stolen bases. The Hen's standout first baseman Steve Ulaky is hitting .315 and leads the team with 6 home runs and 23 RBI's. One statistic that stands out for Steve is he has only 4 walks and 8 strikeouts in 111 at-bats this season. This guy must be patient at the plate and really good at making contact with the ball. Ulaky hits 3rd for the Blue Hens. Beyond Dameron and Ulaky there isn't anyone to be scared of in the lineup. All other starters are hitting below .300 with low slugging percentages which means they're not doing too much damage outside of occasional singles.

Delaware on the Mound: The Blue Hen pitching staff has an ERA of 4.67 which is good for 4th in the CAA behind GSU, W&M and ODU. They have allowed a touch over 6 runs per game this season. This weekend's rotation will be the following:

Eric Young (Jr., RH) - Eric is 2-2 after 6 starts with a 3.86 ERA. He has a 3:2 strikeout to walk ratio and batters are hitting .248 against him. Eric has a 1.2 WHIP. He is a new member of the pitching staff after transferring in from junior college.

Dan Gatto (Fr., RH) - Dan earned a spot in the weekend rotation as a freshman and has put up a 1-2 record through 4 starts and 1 relief appearance. He has an ERA of 3.26 after pitching 19.1 innings. Dan has a WHIP of 1.6 and has even walks-to-strikeouts.

Chad Kuhl (Fr., RH) - Chad is 1-1 after 4 starts and 2 relief appearances with a 3.51 ERA. Chad has a 1.6 WHIP and has thrown 21 strikeouts in 25.2 innings. Batters are hitting .264 against him. As you can see, none of these 3 starters have been pounded for runs so the Panthers lineup faces a good group of starters.

The two most frequently used relievers have starter like stats at ERAs of 3.09 and 3.63, while not as low as you'd like from your top relievers they're not giving up many runs either.

GSU at the Plate: The Panthers offense has adjusted to the new NCAA bats and have hit for double-digits in 13 straight games now. This offense entered the week ranked 12th in the nation in hits, leads the NCAA in doubles and is 2nd in walks. The team is batting .318 which is 2nd in the CAA behind James Madison (.346). The offense is now scoring 8 runs per game but has scored over 10 runs per game in during the last 13. Brett Maxwell is coming off a great game at the plate and still leads the offense with a .432 batting average which places him 2nd in the CAA. Brett is also slugging .642 with 11 doubles and 2 home runs on the season. Leadoff hitter Mark Micowski continues his hot hitting as his average sits at .348 and is 2nd on the team with 20 RBI's.

GSU on the Mound: The Panthers pitching staff still holds the title of being the best in the CAA. The team ERA is 4.13 and they've allowed 5 runs per game. They are 2nd in the CAA in hits allowed per game at 8.7, William & Mary only betters them by .2 hits per game. The group has the least amount of home runs allowed at 9 and has the lowest batting average against at .259. Weekend starters are:

Aidan Francis (Sr., LH) - Aidan is 4-0 through 6 starts in 2011 with a 5.40 ERA. While he gave up 5 runs through 6 innings against VCU last Friday, he has won 8 straight decisions going back into the 2010 season. Opposing batters are hitting .290 against Aidan.

Charley Olsen (Sr., RH) - Charley is 2-2 on the season with a 3.41 ERA. Opposing hitters are just .268 against him at the plate. He has almost 1 strikeout per inning pitched on the season and only 9 walks through 31.2 innings. He also has the best WHIP number of the 3 starters at 1.3. Charley seems to keep getting the mound on the toughest day of the series as he's pitched better than a 2-2 record. I think he has the most favorable pitching matchup of the weekend against Delaware so let's hope he can notch his 3rd win.

Justin Malone (Jr., RH) - Justin enters with a 4-0 record and a 4.13 ERA. Malone is coming off an uncharacteristic outing against VCU last Sunday. He went only 2.2 innings and allowed 5 runs on 11 hits. This has been his only blemish on the season. Even after this rough outing he still has a WHIP of 1.5, still a good number for your starter.

The relief crew continues to be outstanding for the Panthers. Jake Dyer, Sam Agnew-Wieland, Nick Squeglia and Jeremy Gazerro have been the go-to guys so far this season. Their ERAs are 1.59, 1.93, 2.55 and 4.61 respectively and have given up only 23 runs through 69.1 innings. These guys are giving opposing batters nothing to work with as the batters are hitting .228, .235, .200 and .235 against them. That's great stuff and is a large reason the Panthers sit at a 21-6 record.


This series gives us what I think is the toughest group of starters we've faced so far. Maybe not the best individual talent, but definitely the most solid group across the 3-game series. With that said, the advantage goes to the Panthers as we're throwing 2 seniors and a junior at them while they bring a junior and 2 freshman. Our 3 starters have thrown 96 innings and they've thrown just 75.1 innings. The Panther offense should be too much for these guys and will hopefully leave a stain on their statistics similar to how VCU did us last weekend. I think we take 2-of-3 which given the expected cool conditions on the road in conference play, against a good set of young starters, will be a good outcome.