Baseball Begins Five-Game Homestand on Tuesday against MVSU
4/16/2012 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
April 16, 2012
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - Alabama will host the Mississippi Valley State Delta Devils in a two-game mid-week series beginning on Tuesday. First pitch for the games on Tuesday and Wednesday are scheduled for 6:05 p.m. CT, from Sewell-Thomas Stadium. The Crimson Tide (13-23) comes into the week after being swept in a three-game series at third-ranked LSU last weekend. Mississippi Valley State (8-28) has won two of its last four games, but dropped its Southwest Athletic Conference series to Alcorn State over the weekend.
All games for the 2012 season will be broadcast on the Crimson Tide Sports Network. This week's games against Mississippi Valley State can be heard on WFFN-FM 95.3. Chris Stewart and Lee Tracey will provide the radio commentary for both games against MVSU. A live webcast with audio and video, as well as live stats will be available at RollTide.com.
Probable Pitching Matchups
Tuesday W-L ERA G/GS IP H R ER BB SO
UA-Case Nixon (Soph., RHP) 0-1 4.35 6/1 10.1 8 6 5 8 13
MVSU-Cam Harold (Fr., RHP) 0-0 0.00 0/0 0.0 0 0 0 0 0
Wednesday W-L ERA G/GS IP H R ER BB SO
UA-TBA
MVSU-David Lostra (Soph., LHP) 2-7 10.20 13/8 42.1 64 52 48 31 30
Freshman Ben Moore leads Alabama in hitting with a .338 batting average. Moore is hitting .347 during SEC play, which ranks ninth in the conference. Taylor Dugas is hitting .328 for the season, which is second on the team. Dugas' 46-game streak of reaching base safely ended on Saturday. He leads the team with 18 walks and 14 HBP for a team-high .458 on-base percentage. Dugas has an SEC leading five triples this season, and now holds the school record with 16 career triples. He has 64 doubles and is tied with Dave Magadan for the school record in doubles. Jared Reaves, who is third on the team with a .322 average, homered for the third time this season on Sunday, and is now tied with Brett Booth for the team lead. Booth leads the team with 25 RBI and Reaves is second on the squad with 20 RBI.
Mississippi Valley State comes into the two-game series with Alabama with an 8-28 overall record following a series loss to Alcorn State over the weekend. MVSU had lost 11 straight games before posting a 2-0 win over Delta State on April 10. MVSU is 7-11 in the Southwestern Athletic Conference, which included a 9-4 win over Alcorn State on Saturday, the only win of the series for the Delta Devils. The Delta Devils are hitting .225 for the season, while average 3.7 runs and 7.1 hits per game. The MVSU pitching staff has a 6.38 earned run average. Opponents are hitting .310 against The Valley, while scoring 6.9 runs and getting 10.5 hits per game.
The leading hitter for the Delta Devils is Jose Germaine with a .305 average. Germaine also leads the team with 20 RBI and 10 doubles. Allen Cheek leads the team with two home runs, which is two-thirds of the overall team total. Edm Cheatham, who is hitting .271 for the season, leads the squad with 38 hits in a team-high 140 at-bats. Billy Linney leads the team with 22 walks and has three of the four triples for MVSU this season.
Cody Parker has made an appearance in 27 of MVSU's 36 games this season. Parker has a 2-0 record, one save and a 3.93 ERA in 50.1 innings pitched, all out of the bullpen. Christopher Broadway and Trey Lacy lead the team with nine starts each, while Kameron Stady and Davis Lostra have made eight starts on the mound this year. Only seven different players have pitched for the Delta Devils this season, with five of the seven players throwing at least 40 innings.
In a series that dates back to the 2002 season, Tuesday and Wednesday's games will be the 16th and 17th played between the two schools. Alabama has won all 15 games played in the series, with every game being played in Tuscaloosa. Last season, the Crimson Tide posted back-to-back wins over the Delta Devils, posting 10-1 and 10-0 victories respectively. Head coach Mitch Gaspard is 4-0 lifetime against MVSU, with all four games coming in his two years at Alabama.
Alabama lost the final game of a three-game series to the third-ranked LSU Tigers on Sunday, 5-1. The loss completed the sweep of the Crimson Tide, which has lost four of five SEC series this season. The Tide's only run of the game came on a first inning solo home run by Jared Reaves. Alabama finished the game with just five hits, two coming from Hunter Gregory. Freshman pitcher Jon Keller took the loss to drop to 1-3 on the year. Keller threw 5.0 innings, allowing four runs on six hits with two walks and a strikeout. LSU scored once in the first and got three runs on back-to-back doubles by JaCoby Jones and Arby Fields in the second. The Tigers added an insurance run off Jake Hubbard in the seventh.
In 36 games this season, Alabama has started a freshman pitcher 23 times. The Tide has thrown a total of 314.1 innings this season and freshmen have accounted for 193.2 innings pitched, 61.6 percent. First-year pitchers have provided an additional 18.0 innings, giving the Tide 211.2 of its 314.1 innings (67.3 percent) from players that were not on the 2011 pitching staff.
Alabama returns to SEC play on Friday with game one of a three-game series against Vanderbilt. Friday's game against the Commodores begins at 6:35 p.m. CT, game two on Saturday begins at 2:05 p.m. CT, and Sunday's series finale starts at 1:05 p.m. CT.
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