KALAMAZOO, Mich. – Coming off of a series victory over the weekend at first-place Bowling Green, the Western Michigan baseball team visits Valparaiso on Tuesday afternoon.
GAME INFO
Matchup: Western Michigan (25-19) at Valparaiso (14-31)
Date/Time: Tuesday, May 7 – 4 pm
Site: Emory G. Bauer Stadium (Valparaiso, Ind.)
Video: ESPN+
Live Stats: StatBroadcast
FOLLOW ALONG: @WMUBaseball
LEADING OFF
- Western Michigan closes out its road trip on Tuesday as it visits Valparaiso
- The Broncos are 13-6 in true road games this season
- WMU owns a 36-18 advantage in the all-time series against Valparaiso
- Last Tuesday, Western Michigan beat Valpo 8-6 in 15 innings on a walk-off home run by Dylan Nevar
- The Beacons won last season's meeting in Valparaiso, 9-6
- Western Michigan is coming off of a weekend series victory at first-place Bowling Green
- The Broncos closed out the series with an 11-0 win on Sunday, their third shutout of the season
- WMU's three MAC shutouts are the most in the league, with no other team having more than one
- CJ Richmond had a big series against BGSU, going 9-for-13 (.692) with four RBIs
- On Monday, Richmond was named the MAC Player of the Week
- The Broncos enter the week leading the conference with a .316 batting average, which is 15th in DI
- Cade Sullivan (.410) and Richmond (.396) are the top-2 in the MAC in batting average
- Sullivan's mark is 14th in the nation, while Richmond is 26th nationally
- Dylan Nevar is third in the MAC with 55 RBIs and Richmond is tied for fourth with 53
END OF THE ROAD
Western Michigan ends its road swing on Tuesday afternoon as it visits Valparaiso for the back end of a home-and-home. The Broncos are 13-6 in true road games this season, including a 6-1 mark in non-conference road contests.
SERIES HISTORY
WMU owns a 36-18 mark in the all-time series against Valparaiso. Last week, Western Michigan beat the Beacons 8-6 in 15 innings on a walk-off home run by
Dylan Nevar, in what was the first walk-off win of the season for the Brown and Gold. Valpo won last season's meeting between the two on its home turf, 9-6.
LAST TIME OUT
Western Michigan is coming off of a series victory at first-place Bowling Green over the weekend. The Falcons took Friday's series opener, but the Broncos bounced back to win the next two, including an 11-0 shutout to seal the series on Sunday. WMU pitching shut out the BGSU offense, which entered the weekend as the third-highest scoring offense in the country, over the final 14 innings of the series and handed the Falcons their first shutout loss of 2024.
BLANKING BG
The trio of
DJ Thompson (3.0 IP),
Joe Shapiro (3.0) and
Hayden Berg (1.0) led the Broncos to an 11-0 shutout victory to wrap up the series at Bowling Green, their third MAC shutout of the season. Western Michigan is the only team in the conference to have more than one shutout in league play so far in 2024. WMU held BGSU scoreless over the final 14 innings of the series, and allowed the Falcons to score in just three out of 25 innings over the weekend.
RAKING RICHMOND
CJ Richmond stayed hot over the weekend, compiling a .692 (9-for-13) average and reaching base at a .714 clip in the series against BGSU. The junior had multiple hits in all four of WMU's games last week and went 12-for-18 (.667) with seven RBIs to claim the MAC Player of the Week award. Richmond joined
Cade Sullivan and
Grady Mee as the three Broncos to win a Player of the Week award in 2024. Overall, Richmond has collected multiple hits in six consecutive games to raise his batting average to .396, the second-highest mark in the league behind Sullivan. The Indianapolis native is also second in the MAC in OPS (1.181), third in hits (67), OBP (.495) and slugging (.686), tied for fourth in RBIs (53) and tied for eighth in home runs (11).
50/50
Both
Dylan Nevar and
CJ Richmond eclipsed the 50-RBI mark for the season over the weekend against Bowling Green to become the first WMU teammates to surpass 50 RBIs in the same season since Matt Mieske and Damon Saetre in 1989. Nevar is third in the MAC with 55 RBIs, while Richmond is tied for fourth with 53. With his multi-homer, 5-RBI game on Sunday, Nevar moved into fifth in career RBIs at WMU.
COUNTING ON CADE
Cade Sullivan enters the week leading the MAC and ranking 14th in NCAA Division I in batting average at .410. The senior is also atop the conference in hits (73) and on-base percentage (.505), while ranking among the league leaders in runs scored (58, T-2), OPS (1.157, 3rd), slugging percentage (.652, 7th), walks (32, T-8) and RBIs (46, T-8). On Saturday, Sullivan passed Chris Lewis (2007-10) for second in career RBIs at Western Michigan with 157.
OFFENSIVE ONSLAUGHT
The Western Michigan offense enters the week leading the conference in team batting average at .316, which ranks 15th in NCAA Division I, and in hits with 486. The Broncos also rank second in the league in on-base percentage (.414), the 36th-best mark in the country, and third in walks with 221. Four Broncos rank in the top-20 in the conference walks, led by
Jackson Kitchen, who is tied for fifth with 34 free passes.
