No boss at the office today means I have some time to do a preview. I'll start with the pitching and post it, and then go to the hitters to look out for.
Kentucky will host a 3 game set this weekend against the Western Michigan Broncos. Western Michigan plays in the Mid-American conference, where last year they went 23-17 in their conference and finished tied for 3rd. Overall they were 24-26 with their lone OOC win coming against Ball State.
Western Michigan is 1-2 on the year, having only faced Bradley to start the season. Interestingly, they played their first series at a neutral site in Richmond, Kentucky at EKU's Earle Combs Stadium. So, EKU hit the road and went to Macon, Georgia to play Mercer and Bradley came down to EKU from Illinois and WMU from Michigan to face one another in a three game set. Not sure why, but they played their games this past weekend with 1 on Saturday and then had a double header on Sunday. The first game on Sunday they only played 7 innings, but they played a full 9 in the second game. No idea why they did it that way. Pretty strange. Just for consistency, I'll still refer to their starters as Friday, Saturday, Sunday and the games as Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Just makes it easier to keep straight. Also want to point out that it is extremely weird that they came down to KY to play the series, but didn't play a mid-week game. Sometimes you might see a team come to an area and stay a full 10 or 11 days and play 7 games in that time, but they didn't have a midweek game, so they may have headed back home to Kalamazoo.
First pitch this afternoon will be at 4:00pm at KPP and UK hitters will likely face Easton Sikorski. Easton is a 6'0 205 pound junior right hander. He threw 4 innings against Bradley a week ago and gave up 8 hits (.471), 3 runs, 2 earned (4.50 ERA), with 0 walks and 3 strikeouts. So Easton threw strikes and Bradley put the ball in play, but it seems like he was able to limit the damage. Looking a bit deeper, it appears that he we going pretty well, but had a rough third where he gave up the 3 runs on 4 hits. Easton has a career 4.39 ERA, and carried a 4.14 ERA through 11 starts a year ago and had 62 strikeouts in 63 innings while walking just 18. So, again, he's going to fill up the strike zone and try to trust his defense. Best that I can tell, he probably throws high 80s or 90s and with an over the top delivery. So, probably see him throwing more off-speed type pitches if I had to guess. Not going to be swing and miss type stuff, but we saw this past week that those type of pitchers that are located were a problem for UK as we put the ball into play, but we still couldn't find hits.
Saturday UK will likely see Dane Armbrustmacher. Dane will be the first starting lefty that UK faces this season (IIRC). He is 6'4 205 junior and has an over the top type of delivery. Doesn't seem like he hides the ball all too well. This is his first year starting full time. He had 3 starts a year ago with 17 appearances and had a 6.75 ERA. Against Bradley last Saturday he had a pretty strong outing as he went 5 innings struck out 10 hitters and gave up just 1 walk. He did give up 3 hits, 2 of which were solo home runs. So, he can be susceptible to leaving the ball up in the zone, but Bradley hit just .158 against him in those 5 innings, so they struggled to hit him outside of that. Looking deeper, both home runs came in the top of the 2nd for Bradley, and outside of those 2, Dane struck out the side. So, he got a K, gave up a home run, got a K, gave up a home run, and then got a K. That is a pretty wild inning.
Jack Huisman got the start for Bradley on Sunday, but he only went 2.1 as he had a rough day giving up 7 earned runs on 5 hits, walking 5 and striking out 2. Jack is a 6'4 200 pound righty senior, so he certainly has plenty of experience. A year ago he started in 8 games and had a 4.18 ERA. Carries a career 11.76 ERA. Not sure if they will continue to go to Jack on Sunday after his start this past week, but it might be too early to go ahead and make a change. It seems a bit odd to me that they have 2 juniors and a senior pitching on the weekend rather than some younger guys.
Out of the bullpen, only 2 pitchers saw more than 1 day of work this past weekend. They were sophomore righty Hayden Berg who threw 3.1 innings across 2 games. He gave up 3 runs on 4 hits in those two appearances and struck out 3 and walked 3. Gave up 2 home runs and 2 doubles. He came into the game on Friday and it looks like they were going to use him to try to stop the bleeding. WMU was up 8-5 to start the 8th, but Bradley had a big inning and had closed the gap to 8-7 when Berg came in with 2 outs and 2 men on (they had intentionally walked the Bradley SS for some reason, he was hitless in the game, so not sure why they wanted to walk him with 2 outs. Still, Berg faced the 5 hole hitter and gave up a walk that loaded the bases and then gave up a grand slam to make the game 11-8. He gave up another walk before finally getting a lineout to end the inning, and take the loss. He appeared again in the Sunday game. WMU jumped out to a big lead, up 9-2 after the top of the 3rd, but in the third Huisman struggled and gave up a couple runs before giving way to Houghtaling, and the two combined to give up 9 runs in the inning to make the game 9-11 in favor of Bradley. Berg came into the game in the 4th with 0 outs and a runner on. He allowed that inherited base runner to score after giving up a double and a sac fly, but he didn't allow any runs of his own. The lone run he gave up came off a home run to lead off the bottom of the 5th. So, we might see Berg a time or two this weekend and it seems like UK should be able to hit him hard and send some balls out of the park.
The other pitcher that has 2 appearances is Nick Crandell, a 6'2 sophomore righty. Crandell pitched 0.2 innings in the Friday game and gave up 4 earned runs on 3 hits with 1 walk and 1 strikeout. He then came back on Sunday and pitched 1 full giving up 0 earned runs with 2 walks and 1 strikeout.
Brendan Lovell was their most successful pitcher of the weekend. The senior righty went three full in the first game, giving up 4 hits, 2 runs, 1 earned with 5 strikeouts and 1 walk. I imagine he'll get more work this weekend if the games are close.
Overall, the WMU staff is just not very good. They are experienced and, unless something changes, will only pitch 1 true freshmen and 2 redshirt freshmen. Everyone else is mostly a junior or a senior. Despite that, just doesn't seem like there are a whole lot of imposing arms in that dugout and none that should really scare the UK hitters. They do have a few of lefties to help flip the UK lineup around, but one of them is their game 2 starter and only one other one has pitched this past weekend, and he had a rough go of it, taking a loss in the 2nd game and giving up 5 earned runs in the last inning, the 7th.
This is a staff with a combined ERA above 12. Sunday they got a win, but they gave up 17 runs and needed 19 of their own to win. They have really struggled late in games as they gave up 16 runs over the three games in the last 2 Bradley at bats over the weekend (i.e the 7th and 8th in the Friday game because Bradley didn't bat in the 9th). UK has shown an ability to feast on late game pitching (14 runs in their 4 games in the 9th this season) and I think they could definitely do that this weekend.
Kentucky will host a 3 game set this weekend against the Western Michigan Broncos. Western Michigan plays in the Mid-American conference, where last year they went 23-17 in their conference and finished tied for 3rd. Overall they were 24-26 with their lone OOC win coming against Ball State.
Western Michigan is 1-2 on the year, having only faced Bradley to start the season. Interestingly, they played their first series at a neutral site in Richmond, Kentucky at EKU's Earle Combs Stadium. So, EKU hit the road and went to Macon, Georgia to play Mercer and Bradley came down to EKU from Illinois and WMU from Michigan to face one another in a three game set. Not sure why, but they played their games this past weekend with 1 on Saturday and then had a double header on Sunday. The first game on Sunday they only played 7 innings, but they played a full 9 in the second game. No idea why they did it that way. Pretty strange. Just for consistency, I'll still refer to their starters as Friday, Saturday, Sunday and the games as Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Just makes it easier to keep straight. Also want to point out that it is extremely weird that they came down to KY to play the series, but didn't play a mid-week game. Sometimes you might see a team come to an area and stay a full 10 or 11 days and play 7 games in that time, but they didn't have a midweek game, so they may have headed back home to Kalamazoo.
First pitch this afternoon will be at 4:00pm at KPP and UK hitters will likely face Easton Sikorski. Easton is a 6'0 205 pound junior right hander. He threw 4 innings against Bradley a week ago and gave up 8 hits (.471), 3 runs, 2 earned (4.50 ERA), with 0 walks and 3 strikeouts. So Easton threw strikes and Bradley put the ball in play, but it seems like he was able to limit the damage. Looking a bit deeper, it appears that he we going pretty well, but had a rough third where he gave up the 3 runs on 4 hits. Easton has a career 4.39 ERA, and carried a 4.14 ERA through 11 starts a year ago and had 62 strikeouts in 63 innings while walking just 18. So, again, he's going to fill up the strike zone and try to trust his defense. Best that I can tell, he probably throws high 80s or 90s and with an over the top delivery. So, probably see him throwing more off-speed type pitches if I had to guess. Not going to be swing and miss type stuff, but we saw this past week that those type of pitchers that are located were a problem for UK as we put the ball into play, but we still couldn't find hits.
Saturday UK will likely see Dane Armbrustmacher. Dane will be the first starting lefty that UK faces this season (IIRC). He is 6'4 205 junior and has an over the top type of delivery. Doesn't seem like he hides the ball all too well. This is his first year starting full time. He had 3 starts a year ago with 17 appearances and had a 6.75 ERA. Against Bradley last Saturday he had a pretty strong outing as he went 5 innings struck out 10 hitters and gave up just 1 walk. He did give up 3 hits, 2 of which were solo home runs. So, he can be susceptible to leaving the ball up in the zone, but Bradley hit just .158 against him in those 5 innings, so they struggled to hit him outside of that. Looking deeper, both home runs came in the top of the 2nd for Bradley, and outside of those 2, Dane struck out the side. So, he got a K, gave up a home run, got a K, gave up a home run, and then got a K. That is a pretty wild inning.
Jack Huisman got the start for Bradley on Sunday, but he only went 2.1 as he had a rough day giving up 7 earned runs on 5 hits, walking 5 and striking out 2. Jack is a 6'4 200 pound righty senior, so he certainly has plenty of experience. A year ago he started in 8 games and had a 4.18 ERA. Carries a career 11.76 ERA. Not sure if they will continue to go to Jack on Sunday after his start this past week, but it might be too early to go ahead and make a change. It seems a bit odd to me that they have 2 juniors and a senior pitching on the weekend rather than some younger guys.
Out of the bullpen, only 2 pitchers saw more than 1 day of work this past weekend. They were sophomore righty Hayden Berg who threw 3.1 innings across 2 games. He gave up 3 runs on 4 hits in those two appearances and struck out 3 and walked 3. Gave up 2 home runs and 2 doubles. He came into the game on Friday and it looks like they were going to use him to try to stop the bleeding. WMU was up 8-5 to start the 8th, but Bradley had a big inning and had closed the gap to 8-7 when Berg came in with 2 outs and 2 men on (they had intentionally walked the Bradley SS for some reason, he was hitless in the game, so not sure why they wanted to walk him with 2 outs. Still, Berg faced the 5 hole hitter and gave up a walk that loaded the bases and then gave up a grand slam to make the game 11-8. He gave up another walk before finally getting a lineout to end the inning, and take the loss. He appeared again in the Sunday game. WMU jumped out to a big lead, up 9-2 after the top of the 3rd, but in the third Huisman struggled and gave up a couple runs before giving way to Houghtaling, and the two combined to give up 9 runs in the inning to make the game 9-11 in favor of Bradley. Berg came into the game in the 4th with 0 outs and a runner on. He allowed that inherited base runner to score after giving up a double and a sac fly, but he didn't allow any runs of his own. The lone run he gave up came off a home run to lead off the bottom of the 5th. So, we might see Berg a time or two this weekend and it seems like UK should be able to hit him hard and send some balls out of the park.
The other pitcher that has 2 appearances is Nick Crandell, a 6'2 sophomore righty. Crandell pitched 0.2 innings in the Friday game and gave up 4 earned runs on 3 hits with 1 walk and 1 strikeout. He then came back on Sunday and pitched 1 full giving up 0 earned runs with 2 walks and 1 strikeout.
Brendan Lovell was their most successful pitcher of the weekend. The senior righty went three full in the first game, giving up 4 hits, 2 runs, 1 earned with 5 strikeouts and 1 walk. I imagine he'll get more work this weekend if the games are close.
Overall, the WMU staff is just not very good. They are experienced and, unless something changes, will only pitch 1 true freshmen and 2 redshirt freshmen. Everyone else is mostly a junior or a senior. Despite that, just doesn't seem like there are a whole lot of imposing arms in that dugout and none that should really scare the UK hitters. They do have a few of lefties to help flip the UK lineup around, but one of them is their game 2 starter and only one other one has pitched this past weekend, and he had a rough go of it, taking a loss in the 2nd game and giving up 5 earned runs in the last inning, the 7th.
This is a staff with a combined ERA above 12. Sunday they got a win, but they gave up 17 runs and needed 19 of their own to win. They have really struggled late in games as they gave up 16 runs over the three games in the last 2 Bradley at bats over the weekend (i.e the 7th and 8th in the Friday game because Bradley didn't bat in the 9th). UK has shown an ability to feast on late game pitching (14 runs in their 4 games in the 9th this season) and I think they could definitely do that this weekend.
