Iowa baseball weekend preview

Coach Rick Heller and the Hawkeyes will travel to East Lansing this weekend for their final weekend road trip of the season. The Michigan State Spartans are the opponent on the docket and Iowa is looking for another big weekend to keep their NCAA Tournament chances in check.

The Spartans come into the weekend with a 22-25 record, as well as 6-12 in Big Ten play, but it has been an up and down season for MSU. They have had three losing streaks of 3+ games, but also have six game win streak under their belt. This past week, Michigan State was swept by Penn State and dropped a midweek game to Notre Dame. The Spartans were able to grab a win against Western Michigan on Wednesday.

The Hawkeyes will finish up their midweek portion of the schedule this week as well, with a trip to Chicago to face Illinois-Chicago on Tuesday.

Friday Pitching Matchup – rSoph Adam Mazur vs Jr Conner Tomasic

New week, same discussion. Adam Mazur has put together an incredible last month, including six straight starts of 6+ innings pitched and two or less earned runs allowed. On the season, Mazur has a 2.37 ERA, including 82 strikeouts to 23 walks in 79.2 innings. Last week against Purdue, Adam came up just short of a complete game shutout, but still went 8.2 innings and got the Hawkeyes the win on the mound.

Conner Tomasic will take the mound on Friday for his eighth start of the season. Tomasic has posted a 4.61 ERA and 1.35 WHIP over 54.2 innings. His strikeout numbers are pretty low given the innings pitched, as he averages just 6.01 SO/9. Last weekend against Penn State, Tomasic went 4.1 innings, allowing three runs on five hits, while striking out one and walking one. In Big Ten play he has allowed 15 runs over 34.2 innings of work (3.94 ERA).

Saturday Pitching Matchup – GSr Connor Schultz vs TBA

It has been a rough two weeks for Connor Schultz, but he will look to get back on track this week in East Lansing. Against Nebraska he struggled with his command, while last week against Purdue he struggled with location of his pitches. Either way you slice it, he has allowed 11 earned runs over his last 5.0 innings of work. However, there is reason to believe that he can turn it around. Prior to the last two weeks, Connor had posted seven straight outings allowing one earned run or fewer, including his 8.0 inning gem against Rutgers.

Sunday Pitching Matchup – Soph Ty Langenberg vs TBA

Ty Langenberg looks like he has gotten past his midseason rough stretch, as his last two starts have been a big key in Iowa avoiding series losses. On the season, Ty has a 5-1 record, including a 3.16 ERA, as well as 64 strikeouts to 16 walks in 51.1 innings. Last weekend against Purdue, he went 7.0 innings, allowing just one run on five hits, while striking out seven and walking just one.

The Spartans were not very helpful, as they announced just one of their starters for the weekend. That is due in large part to playing 5 games in four days from Sunday to Wednesday. Sophomore lefty Nick Powers has started ten games with a 6.37 ERA, while sophomore Harrison Cook has made 11 starts with a 7.86 ERA. I would guess they are the leading candidates to start the other two games.

Breaking Down the Spartans

Michigan State comes into the weekend batting .273 as a team and have scored 258 runs on the year. Those stats rank 165th and 204th in the country. They are led by SS Mitch Jebb, who has put together an all-conference type season for the Spartans. Jebb leads the team with a .349 batting average and an impressive 32 walks to 16 strikeouts, which gives him a .438 on-base percentage. He also leads the team in runs (32), hits (67), RBIs (46) and total bases (98). Mitch Jebb is the toughest out to record in the MSU lineup.

OF Jack Frank comes into the weekend with a .301 average on the season, including a team leading 13 doubles and seven home runs. He leads the team with 22 extra base hits and is third on the team with 90 total bases, but has struggled as of late. The sophomore is just 8/37 (.216) over his last eight games including 11 strikeouts. OF Casey Mayes, on the other hand, is 19/50 (.380) over his last 12 games. On the season, Mayes is batting .307, including a team leading five triples, as well as 91 total bases. He is not afraid to swing the bat, as he has accumulated 47 strikeouts to just four walks on the season. Jebb, Frank and Mayes combine to form a pretty dangerous threat on the bases, as they have stolen 38 bases on the year.

1B Brock Vradenburg is batting .293 on the season and has found some success over the past couple of weeks. Vradenburg has a hit in ten of his last 11 games and is batting .435 over that stretch. 2B Trent Farquhar comes in batting .279 on the year, but has been the opposite of Vradenburg. Farquhar has a hit in just 6 of his last 14 games and is batting just .156 in that stretch. He does have 16 extra base hits and 75 total bases, which both rank fourth on the team.

C Bryan Broecker (.270, 28 R), 3B Dillon Kark (.269), CF Peter Ahn (.220, 12 2B) and DH Zaid Walker (.193) are other names to expect in the Michigan State starting lineup.

It is also worth noting that the Spartans infield is not the best at fielding, as Farquhar, Jebb and Kark have committed a combined 27 errors. For comparison, Fullard, Seegers and Sher have 10 for the Hawkeyes.

Kyle Bischoff will be the top arm out of the bullpen for MSU this weekend and he has put together a pretty good season so far. The grad transfer from Toledo has a 2.14 ERA over 19 appearances, including 31 strikeouts to 13 walks in 33.2 innings. He has also collected 10 saves on the year. Wyatt Rush has a 3.89 ERA over 18 appearances, but does not strikeout many guys. He has 25 strikeouts and 18 walks in 39.1 innings, while allowing 43 hits.

Andrew Carson has made the most appearances with 23 on the season and comes in with a 5.62 ERA. Over his last eight outings, Carson has thrown 13.0 innings, including 17 strikeouts to one walk with a 0.69 WHIP and 2.77 ERA.

Dominic Pianto (7.00 ERA), Ryan Szczepaniak (6.21 ERA) and Brian Martin (5.40 ERA, 1.90 WHIP) could all see the mound this weekend as well. Also of note, Dominic Hann (10.45 ERA) is no longer listed on the roster after making nine appearances this year.

Midweek at Illinois-Chicago

The Flames have come on strong as of late, winning 12 of their last 16 games to get to 20-20 on the season. That helps Iowa from an RPI standpoint, however, that also means this will not be an easy UIC squad to defeat. The Flames have played some Big Ten competition going 1-1 against Northwestern and 2-0 against Purdue. They take on Youngstown State and Oakland this weekend.

OF Brock Rosario is the leader for the Flames offense, as he has started all 40 games and put up a .340 batting average. Rosario leads the team in on-base percentage (.442), at bats (153), hits (52) and walks (22). He is also a stolen base threat with nine on the season.

1B Breck Nowik and C Cole Conn bring some power to the lineup, as they have combined for 35 extra base hits and 13 home runs on the season. Conn leads the team in RBIs (38), doubles (12) and total bases (74), while Nowik has 29 RBIs and 73 total bases on the year. 3B Rayth Petersen (.302, 9 SB) and SS Ryan Lin-Peistrup (.287) are a couple more capable bats in the UIC lineup.

Similar to most midweek games this season, the Hawkeyes should be able to put up runs. The Flames pitching staff has a 5.13 ERA and have allowed 37 runs in five midweek games this season. The other glaring stat? Just four bullpen arms are currently holding opponents to a below .300 batting average. The other eight are not.

Final Thought

Set the Over/Under at 3.5 for the week. The Hawkeyes are looking some more wins to keep them on the NCAA Tournament bubble, while the Spartans come into the weekend having used a lot of pitching over the last few days. If Iowa can get to the MSU bullpen early on Friday and pair it with another Adam Mazur bullpen saving start, the Hawkeyes should have a rather large advantage going into the last two games. The midweek game at Illinois-Chicago will not be easy, but I do not expect Iowa to drop it, given the recent loss to Illinois State. A 4-0 stretch would be a great help to the Hawkeyes RPI.