KALAMAZOO, Mich. – Western Michigan baseball is all set for its Mid-American Conference (MAC) home opener this weekend, welcoming in MAC West rival Ball State for a three-game series. The Broncos and Cardinals will square off on Saturday, April 8 in a doubleheader starting at noon and Sunday, April 9 at 1 p.m. Friday's game has been moved to Saturday.
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The Broncos enter at 13-11 overall and 3-3 in the MAC after a weekend series at Toledo where the Rockets took two of three, with both Toledo wins coming in one run games. The Cardinals will enter at 11-18 overall, 0-6 in the MAC and have lost their last nine games. Last season, the Cardinals won all three regular season games, but the Broncos came back to get their revenge in the MAC Tournament, where WMU downed Ball State in the opener and eventually went on to win its first MAC Tournament Championship in school history.
Offensively, the Broncos are batting .301, good for 34th in the nation. Tanner Allison comes in batting .379 and is second in the nation averaging 1.50 RBI per game. He's also 12th in the nation with 36 RBI. Connor Smith is batting .330 and is fourth in the nation with five triples while Grant Miller is hitting .333 and leads the team with a .440 on-base percentage. Jesse Forestell is batting .309 while Nick Vogelmeier is hitting .286 and leads the team in walks out of the leadoff spot.
The Broncos have a sub-5.00 ERA after a nice week where team allowed just 13 earned runs over a four-game span, with three of those games being two runs or less. Senior Kyle Mallwitz leads the team in most categories, including innings (44.1), strikeouts (38), wins (4) and ERA (2.44) in pitchers who have thrown at least 10.0 innings. Along with Mallwitz, four pitchers have thrown at least 20.0 innings, Jacob Piechota (33.1 IP, 4.86 ERA), Gabe Berman (26.0 IP, 2.77 ERA), Jack Szott (25.2 IP, 3.51 ERA) and Jimmy Townsend-Chase (20.0 IP, 2.70 ERA). WMU also has the 31st best fielding percentage in the nation (.978).
After this weekend, the Broncos head to B1G Northwestern for a midweek game on Tuesday, April 11 at 4:30 before heading to Central Michigan for a three-game series.
