Baseball stops at Murray State before weekend series with WKU; team makes pitching change along the way
Baseball will make a stop to play Murray State on Thursday before heading to Western Kentucky University for a three-game series.
Head coach Steve Jaksa said the pit-stop in Murray, KY., will not be treated any differently than if it were part of the WKU series.
“We’re treating this weekend like a four-game series,” Jaksa said. “It just happens that the first game is against somebody else.”
Jaksa said when the team plays a series instead of a one-gamer, there is a chance to make corrections and changes in the second and third games after seeing how game one goes.
That’s not the case with Murray State.
“We just have one opportunity to go in with what we know about them and what they know about us and we just play one game,” Jaksa said. “That’s all we’ve got to go off of.”
The Chippewas are 1-3 going into the game against the Racers. Opening the season with a four-game series last weekend, CMU dropped the first three games and emerged victorious from the last one, refusing to be swept.
Jaksa said he felt the team did well, with the Saturday double-header losses being a lot closer than the first game.
“If we would have won one of those games we’d be 2-2 and you’d say we got off to a pretty good start,” he said.
Murray State sits at 1-3, opening their season losing a three-game series last weekend to Central Arkansas and winning 19-2 on Tuesday against Mid-Continental.
Jaksa said CMU has already made a switch to the pitching rotation based on last weekend’s performances against Louisiana-Lafayette.
Sophomore Dylan Rheault will move into the rotation, getting the start in Thursday's game.
Sophomore Matt Trowbridge will switch places with Rheault, moving into a closer role with sophomore Sean Renzi.
Jaksa said the moves were in the best interest of the team and individuals, and the switches could very well continue throughout the season.
“Based on week one we thought it was a good move for Matt Trowbridge to move into a closer type of role with Renzi and the same thing with Dylan,” Jaksa said. “We thought, ‘hey let’s throw (Dylan) into the starting role; he’s done that before.’ We think having a lefty and a righty in that last spot will help us and help Dylan a little bit too.”
Thursday’s game against Murray State will begin at 3 p.m. ET.
