2019 MIAA Baseball

[Randy]

The season starts on Friday. For the 7th consecutive season, the Mules host the "Houston Winter Invitational" at Minute Maid Park. This year's event has 6 teams from 5 conferences. CentralMO (MIAA), Ark Tech (GAC), St Cloud (NSIC), St Mary's (Heartland), Kingsville & Tarleton (LSC). Here is a link to the event's webpage with links to live stats and CentralMO audio.

https://ucmathletics.com/sports/2019...itational.aspx

I believe St Cloud is also planning on streaming their games.

[NewmanAndDuquesne]

Re: 2019 MIAA Baseball

UCO hosting the annual First Pitch Classic starting Friday... Emporia State, Pitt State, MSSU, and the 'Chos will take on SWOSU, SE Okla State, Lubbock Christian, and Oklahoma Christian.

Live stats link: https://bronchosports.com/sidearmstats/baseball/summary

Not sure who will be doing video broadcasts of the games.

[NewmanAndDuquesne]

Re: 2019 MIAA Baseball

**SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION**
The MIAA as a conference does not recognize preseason All-MIAA teams... what's the fun in that?

https://newmanandduquesne.wordpress....baseball-team/

[WolfBreed]

Re: 2019 MIAA Baseball

The season starts on Friday. For the 7th consecutive season, the Mules host the "Houston Winter Invitational" at Minute Maid Park. This year's event has 6 teams from 5 conferences. CentralMO (MIAA), Ark Tech (GAC), St Cloud (NSIC), St Mary's (Heartland), Kingsville & Tarleton (LSC). Here is a link to the event's webpage with links to live stats and CentralMO audio.

https://ucmathletics.com/sports/2019...itational.aspx

I believe St Cloud is also planning on streaming their games.

Ooooo - I would love for UWG to somehow get into the mix with this...seems like a great time for a vacation + baseball

[GrifFan]

Re: 2019 MIAA Baseball

Griffons start a three-game series at Oklahoma Baptist tonight. The Bison are picked second in the GAC.

[Hornetfan]

Re: 2019 MIAA Baseball

**SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION**
The MIAA as a conference does not recognize preseason All-MIAA teams... what's the fun in that?

https://newmanandduquesne.wordpress....baseball-team/

Pretty good but I would have Tanner Cairns of ESU on there somewhere as a starting pitcher. Dude is 18-3 in his career.

[NewmanAndDuquesne]

Re: 2019 MIAA Baseball

Pretty good but I would have Tanner Cairns of ESU on there somewhere as a starting pitcher. Dude is 18-3 in his career.

Cairns was a beast Friday against LCU... I considered him but, when I looked more closely at his stats I realized that batters hit almost .280 against him last spring and his ERA was 4.40. That plus a WHIP of 1.43 just made me favor the guys listed a little more.

Thank you for reading and for the feedback.

[Randy]

Re: 2019 MIAA Baseball

Listened to a lot of Mule and St Cloud baseball last weekend. The Huskies were the most impressive team in the invitational and the only team to win all 3 games. Sunday's 7-3 win over the Mules marked the return of All-American pitcher Sheldon Miks who had missed most of the last 2 seasons due to injury. He allowed 2 earned runs and 5 hits in 6 innings.

It was a weekend to forget for the only team ranked in the preseason top 10, Kingsville. The lost to St Cloud on Friday 7-2 and CentralMO on Saturday 11-6. They never had the lead in either game and scored late in each game to narrow the margin. On Sunday the were leading Ark Tech 11-2 going into the bottom of the 7th but surrendered 5 runs in the bottom of the 7th and 6 runs in the 8th to lose 11-13.

Ark Tech & St Mary's went 2-1 while Tarleton & CentralMO were 1-2. The Mule fielding trouble from last season was back as they committed 8 errors leading to 10 unearned runs.

[NewmanAndDuquesne]

Re: 2019 MIAA Baseball

Southern followed up a 2-1 showing at the Edmond First Pitch Classic with a 3-game set vs Northwest Oklahoma State in Joplin this past weekend.

The Rangers dropped the opener 10-0 but then their pitching buckled down to take the last two games and the series.

Good news so far for Southern: Zac Shoemaker seems to be picking up right where he left off on the mound. He's given up just two earned runs in 10.2 innings pitched so far and batters are hitting just .171 against him...RHP Zach Parrish threw a complete game shutout on Friday after struggling in the season opener. Parrish allowed only five hits over 7 innings and struck out 8 Rangers in a 10-0 Southern win... 3B Freddie Landers looks like he may be a POY candidate. Through 5 games, he's batting .500 with an OPS 1.368.

Bad news so far for Southern: The two returning big bats in the middle of the order have gotten off to slow starts. Alex Phillips is slashing .227/.320/.318 through six starts and Mike Million's line is worse at .182/.308/.227. These guys are going to get it going at some point, no question. But, it would stand to reason that this is a key factor in a 3-3 start to the season... The Lions bullpen, through 18.1 innings pitched, has an ERA of 4.91. If you remove the 4 combined appearances by their best two arms in the bullpen so far, those numbers become a 7.59 ERA in 8.1 innings pitched. This number will almost certainly level out but, again, it's a big factor in a 3-3 start to the season.

My early impression is that MSSU absolutely has the talent on it's roster to make a run in the MIAA (and make a regional) but, the entire squad has to get to a point where they are all firing on all cylinders. But, that's what non-con is for.

Southern will host the MIAA/GLVC Crossover next weekend. The Lions will take on Rockhurst on Saturday at 4pm and Northwest Missouri State immediately after that. On Sunday, MSSU will face Missouri-St. Louis at 7pm.

[NewmanAndDuquesne]

Re: 2019 MIAA Baseball

Southern followed up a 2-1 showing at the Edmond First Pitch Classic with a 3-game set vs Northwest Oklahoma State in Joplin this past weekend.

The Rangers dropped the opener 10-0 but then their pitching buckled down to take the last two games and the series.

Good news so far for Southern: Zac Shoemaker seems to be picking up right where he left off on the mound. He's given up just two earned runs in 10.2 innings pitched so far and batters are hitting just .171 against him...RHP Zach Parrish threw a complete game shutout on Friday after struggling in the season opener. Parrish allowed only five hits over 7 innings and struck out 8 Rangers in a 10-0 Southern win... 3B Freddie Landers looks like he may be a POY candidate. Through 5 games, he's batting .500 with an OPS 1.368.

Bad news so far for Southern: The two returning big bats in the middle of the order have gotten off to slow starts. Alex Phillips is slashing .227/.320/.318 through six starts and Mike Million's line is worse at .182/.308/.227. These guys are going to get it going at some point, no question. But, it would stand to reason that this is a key factor in a 3-3 start to the season... The Lions bullpen, through 18.1 innings pitched, has an ERA of 4.91. If you remove the 4 combined appearances by their best two arms in the bullpen so far, those numbers become a 7.59 ERA in 8.1 innings pitched. This number will almost certainly level out but, again, it's a big factor in a 3-3 start to the season.

My early impression is that MSSU absolutely has the talent on it's roster to make a run in the MIAA (and make a regional) but, the entire squad has to get to a point where they are all firing on all cylinders. But, that's what non-con is for.

Southern will host the MIAA/GLVC Crossover next weekend. The Lions will take on Rockhurst on Saturday at 4pm and Northwest Missouri State immediately after that. On Sunday, MSSU will face Missouri-St. Louis at 7pm.

Schedule updated: Crossover will be played midweek, now.

https://mssulions.com/news/2019/2/11...pushed-up.aspx

[Randy]

Re: 2019 MIAA Baseball

CentralMO is moving up their series with Crookston also. Instead of Fri-Sat-Sun they are Wed-Thur with a DH on Thursday. I looked at the 5 day weather for Warrensburg, highs in the low 50's Wed & Thur and highs below 32 for the weekend.

[GrifFan]

Re: 2019 MIAA Baseball

Griffons' scheduled home-opening series with St. Cloud State this week has been canceled.

[Randy]

Re: 2019 MIAA Baseball

The first week of MIAA play concluded yesterday as Western moved their series with Hays to Edmond, OK. Southern(CentralOK) & Western(Hays) are the early leaders with 3-0 sweeps. A game back with 2-1 series wins are CentralMO(Emporia), Lindenwood(Washburn), Northwest(Northeastern) & Pitt(Baptist).

CentralMO outscored Emporia 27-2 in Thursday's DH but Emporia scored 5 runs in the bottom of the 8th to take the opener 10-7.

The Mules play a non-conference game with Truman today. Truman has never beaten the Mules as Truman State. The Bulldogs were Northeast Missouri State the last time they beat the Mules 1989. The winning streak is currently at 84 games.

[NewmanAndDuquesne]

Re: 2019 MIAA Baseball

MSSU baseball debuted at No. 25 in the first D2 Baseball poll today. The Lions look really good so far. And the most promising part of that is that there are a couple of guys that have gotten off to slow starts and/or struggled to be consistent.

Mike Million opened the season as the cleanup guy and he's batting 8-hole now with a .209 average... You have to think he'll heat up some eventually.

Zach Parish has alternated bad starts with dominant ones... His last time out, he went 8.1 innings and gave up just 1 ER on 5 hits with 14 strikeouts. The outing before that, 4 innings and 5 earned runs... If he can keep his rhythm, he combines with Zac Shoemaker and Will Bausinger (Mr. Perfect Game) to form one of the better weekend rotations in the league.

[Randy]

Re: 2019 MIAA Baseball

Mules win 12-5 so the winning streak is now 85 games vs Truman.