2024 Mid-American Conference Baseball Week 4 Recap

A surprising opening weekend of MAC play lends itself to jumping to conclusions, but is it what it seems to be?

It’s the first week of MAC baseball and it looked noticeably colder at the MAC games than the opening weeks of the season in the Carolinas, Florida and Texas. It’s nothing that a majority of the MAC players aren’t used to but it definitely affects the games. It’s harder to stay loose, the ball comes out of the hand differently and getting jammed at the plate hurts worse.

I’ll never say no to baseball, but March baseball in Ohio and Indiana does feel like a mistake. No matter what, baseball is being played and this time it’s the most important games for the teams.

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Week 4 Conference Standings

Let’s overreact to the first weekend of MAC baseball!

Every team plays 30 MAC games over the next 11 weeks, and this week saw 10 teams play about 10 percent of said schedule— but that’s never stopped anyone from jumping to conclusions. With six teams making the MAC Tournament this season, the cut line will be around a .500 winning percentage. Last season, Toledo would have been the sixth seed at 14-16 in the conference.

Kent State, Bowling Green and Toledo each swept their series and gave themselves an early lead on the field. Kent State pitching dominated Central Michigan and the bats exploded in game three. This series has been a very important series for the end of the year seeding in the MAC Tournament. This year, it did two things immediately. Kent State is fine despite a slow start to the season, and now there are major questions about Central Michigan.

Bowling Green and Miami played a wild three-game set that ended in the Falcons sweeping the series. Looking at the rosters before the season, both teams are going to be in the mix for the final spots in the MAC Tournament. Bowling Green sweeping the RedHawks is huge for them. It wasn’t easy and I don’t think it ends that way if they played another three-game series, but it did this time.

Toledo sweeping Akron probably wouldn’t happen in a repeat as well, but the good Toledo pitching showed up in Akron. Toledo’s pitching staff has been hot and cold and they were definitely hot. Akron played well but lost three games by a combined five runs, two were by a single run.

Northern Illinois took two games from Ohio and Eastern Michigan did the same to Ball State. Both are early upsets, but there are a lot of games to play. Eastern Michigan has leaned on their starting pitchers to carry the load this season. Their starting pitchers have pitched 68 percent of their innings and the next highest team is Bowling Green at 51 percent.

NIU beat Ohio in game three in a really strange game. The Huskies needed 120 pitches to get through nine innings and faced 36 batters. That’s 3.3 pitches per batter and with only two walks. NIU pitchers were throwing strikes and Ohio couldn’t turn their balls in play into hits. Clearly, the Bobcats were being aggressive at the plate, but it didn’t work.

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Is Central Michigan OK?

Central Michigan is in an unusual spot. They currently stand 3-14 and 0-3 in the conference and it’s not looking good for the Chippewas. They’ve been a MAC postseason regular and represented the MAC in the NCAA Tournament in 2019, 2021 and 2022. This does not look like the Central Michigan teams that everyone is used to through the first four weeks of the season.

The case for CMU being in trouble is pretty simple. At the time of writing, they are on an 11-game losing streak and the numbers through four weeks are bleak. They have a team batting average of .228, their on-base percentage and slugging percentage is 10th in the MAC and they strike out at the highest rate in the MAC.

The strikeout rate is consistent from 2023 and striking out isn’t the worst outcome of an at-bat. Their calling card on offense has been their ability to get on base, but the OBP is down 63 points from this time last season. The slugging percentage is down about the same amount and the runs per game is only 4.2.

The pitching staff has suffered as well. The team ERA is 9.46 and the walks-hits per inning pitched is over two. In the average inning, two batters reach base. It doesn’t matter how that compares to the previous year, those are bad numbers.

There’s no denying this isn’t where Central Michigan wanted to be, but their schedule has been brutal. The losing streak started in a series against Dallas Baptist, a traditional college baseball power. D1Baseball has them as the #19 team in the nation and there’s no question they’re a strong team.

The next weekend they played Oklahoma State, an NCAA Regional host in 2023. They aren’t the same team they were last season, but they didn’t forget how to play baseball. Then they played a midweek set against Oral Roberts, the team that won the Stillwater Regional and made a run all the way to the College World Series. Three teams in a row that no one would bat an eye at being in the NCAA Tournament field this summer.

Getting swept by Kent State is disappointing because they expect to compete with that team for the MAC title, and they should. The Chippewas also wanted these games to be more competitive. They have a -92 run differential over the 11-game streak.

Central Michigan can turn it around and the open weekend of conference games won’t matter if they make the MAC Tournament. The NCAA Tournament representative for the MAC will be the tournament champ for the foreseeable future and it’s only three games. The results suggest that the departure of head coach Jordan Bischel, and the players that transferred to Cincinnati with him, is going to be difficult to overcome in 2024.

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Quick Notes:

• Toledo at Akron: Noah Johnson and Grant Umberger were stellar for the Rockets, starting games one and two respectively. Akron’s pitching was good, but couldn’t quite match Toledo’s. In the finale, the Toledo bullpen took control for 5.1 innings and allowed two runs, five hits and struck out nine. The Rockets sweep the series and start 3-0 in MAC play.
• EMU at Ball State: The Eagles won two games in a tight, high-scoring series. Their starting pitchers are first, second and fourth respectively in innings pitched this season and the Eagles have needed every one of those innings. Ball State scored ten runs in the ten innings pitched by the EMU bullpen. Ball State’s Merritt Beeker was one out away from a Quality Start and struck out 10 in his 5.2 innings.
• Bowling Green at Miami: This series was absolutely crazy. Bowling Green had a 10-1 lead after five and a half innings in game one and Miami answered with ten runs in the sixth inning. They took the lead to 15-10 before the Falcons retook the lead 16-15. Game two was the most relaxed game, and a 12-1 win for BGSU. Miami rallied back from an early 9-0 hole to tie the game in the bottom of the ninth at ten each in game three. Miami was at the end of their bullpen and left Carson Byers on the mound to handle the final 3.1 innings, including when Bowling Green was scoring four runs in the top of the 12th. Whew.
• CMU at Kent St: Kent State looked like themselves for the first time this season and took care of a Central Michigan team that looks lost. The Flashes had a team OPS of 1.006 in the series. Their team ERA was 0.72 with a WHIP below one. CMU only got 15 hits over the three games.
• NIU at Ohio: The Huskies and Bobcats played a low-scoring series that was decided by defense. Northern Illinois won game one by taking advantage of Ohio’s errors and scoring five unearned runs. NIU only won five conference games a year ago and just took two from Ohio. This is a much peskier NIU squad than the previous seasons.
• Western Michigan: The Bronco pitching got beat up in the weekend series against VCU, Michigan St and Western Carolina. They’re still statistically one of the best offenses in the MAC and they’ve gotten great production from the bullpen. That will keep them in a lot of games this season. For example, they scored six runs in the bottom of the ninth against VCU to push the game to extra innings.

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Notable Performances

Luke Walton is the big hitter of the week with three home runs for Toledo. Two of them came in the series with Akron, the second in game three. He was the third batter to the plate and his three-run home run was crucial in the 6-5 win.

Ball State’s corner infielders sweep the positions despite losing the series to Eastern Michigan. Michael Hallquist has had an incredible start to the season after transferring from Division II Minnesota-Crookston. He’s third in the MAC in hits and his six home runs is tied for second. Ball State knows where to find their guys to reload year after year.

Josh Johnson reached base 11 times and stole four bases. He leads Kent State and the MAC with ten on the season. He’s a do-it-all outfielder who hits for power, average and can tear up the basepaths. He posted an 0.886 OPS last year and is sitting over one so far this season. I hope he gets his name called in July.

Kent State’s starting pitching dominated their series with Central Michigan. Jack Kartsonas allowed a base runner per inning, allowed one run and struck out ten in six innings. His teammate Calvin Bickerstaff allowed fewer baserunners without the strikeouts. His start was a runaway game and they didn’t need to stretch him, but I’m sure they could have the way he was cruising.

Nic Good also got run support in his start for Bowling Green, but he didn’t need it. He allowed one hit in seven innings of work. It was the only comfortable game for the Falcons of the weekend and allowed them to save pitching for a 12-inning game the next day. Pitchers who can be efficient and eat innings are huge for college bullpens.

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A look ahead to Week 5:

All of the matchups in the second weekend of MAC play are interesting for one reason or another. Here’s to hoping the weather cooperates in mid-March and all of the games get in without a problem.

Bowling Green is headed to Ball State in the baseball battle of the birds. Ball State is hungry for wins but the Falcons are hot. They scored 43 runs in three games against Miami and their starting pitching was excellent. In past seasons, these kinds of matchups looked interesting on paper, but then the favorite steamrolled their way to a win. Maybe Bowling Green bucks that trend, or becomes the favorite this year.

Toledo and Western Michigan play a series that could easily go either way. I think Toledo was fortunate to sweep Akron, but they did it with excellent pitching. Western Michigan has maybe the top offense after their non-conference schedule. It’s a classic matchup and could be decided by a handful of runs.

Central Michigan and Miami both need wins. At least one team will get them, but both will be pretty desperate to get rid of the zero in front of their conference record. Miami’s pitching wasn’t a strength last season and is struggling again. This could be the series in which Central Michigan finally scores some runs.

Northern Illinois and Akron could have some juice this year as both teams are improved but still might be bottom-half MAC teams. If NIU can win the series, they’ll be in the driver’s seat for the most improved team, if not more than that. Kent State would do well to show they didn’t just beat a down CMU team against Ohio, but there’s a chance the Bobcats keep finding ways to score runs and take the series.

Eastern Michigan is the odd team out this week and plays a four-game set against Morehead State. Let’s see if they can use it to get their bullpen figured out.

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Series Scores: