2024 Mid-American Conference Baseball Week 10 Recap

Bowling Green is above the soup that is the rest of the MAC standings. Just about any team could make a push but the six below the Falcons are going to have to earn their spots in the MAC Tournament.

Four games separate the race from the second seed to the seventh seed in the middle of the MAC standings! It’ll be a tight race to the finish from this point onwards with critical series popping up for every team in contention.

A pair of upsets tightened the field and even the second-best record, Western Michigan, lost their series and contributed to the chaos. Bowling Green continues to be above it all despite losing their first conference game of the year.

With four weeks left, the playoff push is here. Who’s positioned well and who’s in trouble? Let’s find out!

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Week 10 Conference Standings

The Ball State Cardinals continue to climb the standings and look more and more like a team that no one wants to face in the MAC Tournament. They have an 11-4 record after their 1-5 start to the MAC calendar and are tied for third place. With only one run between them and the cut line, they aren’t safe but the Cardinals are a series away from second place. They get runners on base and their starters have been excellent in the 11-4 stretch. The bullpen is streaky but the stuff is outstanding in the backend, and they’ve pitched the fourth most innings per game in MAC games.

The Cardinals took two of three from Western Michigan and the Broncos maintain their second place. The one-series spread from second to sixth is very tight and there will be changes in the final weeks of the regular season.

Bowling Green is no longer perfect, with a four-run rally in the ninth inning from Ohio breaking the streak. The Falcons won the first two games convincingly but were stymied by Ohio’s Landon Willeman in the third contest. The game still favored Bowling Green headed into the ninth, 2-0, but Ohio applied the pressure to the Falcon bullpen and was rewarded.

The loss is only important because it’s their first one. They are still 17-1 and officially on lock watch. After this weekend they will have nine MAC games remaining and could get their lead on 6th place to more than that and lock up a postseason birth.

Miami sweeps Toledo and forces their way back into the top six. The sweep puts Toledo in a very tight mix with Ball State, Miami and Kent State for the final four spots. Toledo could be fine, they control their own destiny, but the final week of the season is a series against Bowling Green. It would be good for the Rockets to have their wins in hand by that point.

Kent State took two of three from Northern Illinois, in a series that was tighter than expected. The Flashes are barely in fifth place and have a tough road the rest of the way.

Akron swept Eastern Michigan in the most stunning series of the weekend. It knocked the Eagles out of the top six. Northern Illinois is still alive at only 2.5 games back but there are a clear seven teams for six spots. The stretch run is going to be fascinating.

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The unique usage of Peyton Olejnik and Carson Byers

Miami has two relievers that they use differently than any other relievers in the MAC. Every team has long relievers or firemen to come put out fires but no one really uses their bullpen quite like the RedHawks. They essentially have five pitchers that they ask to pitch starter innings for each three-game series. The two that don’t start games are Peyton Olejnik and Carson Byers.

The MAC averages for reliever ERA, WHIP and other quality stats are slightly worse than starters. Pitching is scarce in college baseball, and especially in the MAC. Relievers can come in all shapes and sizes, but some are cutting their teeth in college baseball and want to earn their spot in the rotation in the future. The average MAC reliever ERA is 7.79 and the WHIP is 1.94. If your brain is calibrated to MLB numbers, those are pretty bad, but the college game is much more hitter-friendly for a bunch of reasons I’m not going to get into right now.

Peyton Olejnik has a 5.00 ERA and a 1.33 WHIP, much better than the MAC average, and almost always comes into games in about the fifth inning and takes it home. He’s a starter that head coach Brian Smiley gets to choose when he enters the game. He can enter him after the starter has dealt with the top of the batting order to minimize the times they see Olejnik. He’s 21st in innings pitched in the MAC with 12 appearances and two starts. His weekend appearances are always more than one inning and he’s 6-1 this season. He’s the first arm out of the bullpen if a change is needed in the middle innings.

Carson Byers is a similar story, but he’s used a little more frequently and each outing is a little shorter. He’s appeared 16 times and thrown 43 innings to a 3.35 ERA and a 1.35 WHIP. He enters the weekend usually the day after Olejnik has been used, but he’s another game-finisher for the RedHawks. Each of his last 12 appearances has been for at least two innings and he’s currently on an 18.2 innings scoreless streak.

Other teams have their first out-of-the-bullpen guys, but for whatever reason, they don’t go the distance the way these two do for the RedHawks. It’s an interesting approach to managing a bullpen that could make them a pain to deal with if they make the postseason. Even if opponents can get Patrick Mastrian or Nick Vardavas off the mound, there are two more high-quality “starters” who aren’t going to leave the game after one or two innings of work.

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Quick Notes:

• Akron at Eastern Michigan: Akron pulls the most surprising sweep of 2024, taking down an Eastern Michigan squad who was in the top half of the standings coming into the series. It wasn’t a close series either, as the Zips— who had one conference wing going in— won by five runs, five runs and ten runs in each game respectively. In all of their games this year, Akron has scored 5.38 runs on average. That number was 11.67 last weekend.
• Ball State at Western Michigan: Ball State’s Merritt Beeker and Keegan Johnson dominated the series and held the Broncos to two total runs in 11.1 innings on the mound. The Cardinal bats exploded for 14 runs in the opening win, and scored six in game two. The Broncos were able to mount a late rally in the finale to avoid the sweep.
• Ohio at Bowling Green: Bowling Green cruised to wins on Friday and Saturday by a combined score of 40-10. Turns out they needed to save some of those runs for Sunday. Landon Willeman struck out the first four batters faced and generally kept the Falcon hitters off balance, helping the ‘Cats within striking distance until the end.
• Kent State at Northern Illinois: The Flashes and Huskies traded 7-3 wins to start the series and the third game took extra innings to sort out. Kent State got a clutch grand slam from Tim Orr to take an 8-7 lead in game three, then a single from Dom Kibler to score the winning run in the 10th inning. Northern Illinois showed all of their peskiness in this series.
• Miami at Toledo: Miami pitching showed up in all three games and held the Rockets to five total runs. Game two went to 10 innings before an infield single with two outs by Evan Appelwick scored the winning run. Peyton Olejnik pitched the final six innings in game two and Carson Byers finished the final five in game three.
• Central Michigan: Ben Vitas threw a complete game shutout against Big 12 UCF in game one of the series, and that’s the only game you need to know about. The other two were losses by 15 runs and 20 runs, but Adam Mrakitsch didn’t start. I hope that’s saving him for MAC games and not extended time out of the lineup.

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Notable Performances

The outfielders went off this week!

With Sam Seeker included in the group, they hit a total of 13 home runs and drove in 32 runs. Nathan Archer hit a home run in each game of the weekend series, including one on the first pitch of the bottom of the first in game one. Zach MacDonald had seven hits and four, more than half, landed over the fence.

The starting pitching performances were a solid bunch as well with Ben Vitas’s complete game shutout and Landon Willeman holding Bowling Green in check for 6.1 innings. The strikeout numbers on both are low, but that’s only one part of pitching and run prevention. The defense behind these guys was solid and they weren’t giving up rockets to the gap either. Calvin Bickerstaff gets the game-one win for the Flashes with seven strong innings.

Bryce Smith is a new name on the list from Ohio. The Bobcat first baseman is currently on an eight-game hitting streak and is 14-of-34 over that stretch. Michael McNamara and Michael Hallquist make the Team of the Week for the back-to-back weeks, and both look like locks for the more important list, the All-MAC Team.

The Miami pair of relievers make the list again and it’s no surprise to Toledo hitters. Carson Byers pitched 2.2 innings against Butler and 5 innings of game three against Toledo. He finished both games and collected two wins. His teammate Peyton Olejnik appeared in game two against Toledo and pitched from the 5th inning to the end of the tenth. It was high leverage all the way and got the win. He struck out the side without giving up a base runner in the tenth.

Sam Klein for Ball State picked up the multi-inning save and more than half of the outs he recorded came via the strikeout. He stranded an inherited runner at third base when it looked like Western Michigan might be getting some momentum back.

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A look ahead to Week 11:

The RedHawks and Eagles play the series of the weekend in Oxford in week 11. They just traded places in the standings due to weekends that couldn’t be more different. Eastern Michigan played Akron and got swept by the team with the worst record, and Miami swept Toledo. They can settle it on the field, but EMU needs a sweep to take the sixth spot from Miami.

Kent State hosts the suddenly-human Bowling Green Falcons in a tricky series. Kent is 10-8 and a half game up from the cut line. If Bowling Green continues to be a tank, Kent State could find themselves at 10-11 in the conference and in a very dangerous place. Their remaining schedule is difficult which makes collecting wins in a tough series critically important to not be seventh in the conference. Keep your eyes on this one.

Toledo has to right the ship against Ohio, or they could also find themselves in a must-win series against an Eastern Michigan team with everything on the line. Ohio hasn’t been a consistent threat this season, but the Rockets shouldn’t let them hang around.

Western Michigan is at Akron and has had its eyes opened by what happened to Eastern Michigan. The WMU offense should score runs and give run support to their starters. Northern Illinois heads to Central Michigan, which is a chance for NIU to take a series and position themselves to take advantage of teams that slip up.

Ball State heads to #21 NC State in their non-conference weekend. It’s a tough matchup for anyone in the MAC but the Cardinals are the second hottest team. Their goal is going to be to keep the momentum going for the conference games a week later. This series is important, but not as important as the next.

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Series Scores: