EVANS: CMU baseball should be rewarded with large crowds at home games
The CMU baseball team has the magic in them.
On Saturday, the team was facing Ball State in a doubleheader and completed a Saturday sweep with a ninth-inning rally in the second game.
A wild pitch and a passed ball got the runs across for CMU as it won 7-6. The Chippewas took the first game 12-3 with no problems. The win helped the Chippewas clinch their fourth consecutive conference series.
This team just simply has something about them. If you paid any attention last season you would know that the CMU baseball team loves late-inning drama. Last season the Chippewas won 10 games with the outcome being depicted by two runs or less, including a 9-8 win in the MAC tournament semifinals.
Not much has changed this season as the team has played in 19 games decided by two runs or less and the Chippewas have pulled out wins in nine of those games.
It isn’t the talent and skill of the team that has them pulling out all of these late-inning wins, it is their do or die attitude. There is no tomorrow with this team.
Every pitch of every inning they are working. They are getting better with every pitch that is thrown on both the defensive and offensive sides of the plate. It is not about the type of baseball you play in February, it is about how you finish in May.
After a 9-16 start to the season, CMU was searching for an answer. Losing close game after close game was not the vision this team had at the start of the season. But on March 30, the Chippewas went to East Lansing to face Michigan State in their home opener and something changed.
CMU got a great start from junior pitcher Ryan Longstreth and went on to spoil the Spartans opener with a 3-1 victory.
The Chippewas are 11-4 since that game and have been on an absolute tear. They took two out of three in a weekend series against first place Kent State and have now found themselves within reach of first place in the MAC West Division.
As the end of the school year approaches schedules change, priorities are set and students scramble to study for final exams and scramble to turn in last-minute assignments.
But baseball is constant. It isn’t going anywhere and the CMU baseball team does not want an ending similar to last year where they lost in the championship game of the MAC tournament.
This weekend the baseball team has its second-to-last home series of the season. Theunissen Stadium has one of the best atmospheres in the MAC and the Chippewas are on a roll.
I would like to encourage students who need a break from studying for finals to stop by if the weather is nice, because this team loves playing at home in front of their fans.
But the Chippewas have not been crying over the weather this year. They have been dealing with it, and the same should go for fans.
As the old line goes, “There’s no crying in baseball.”
