2024 Mid-American Conference Baseball Week 7 Recap

Garret Pike hit six home runs this week and still doesn’t lead the conference in home runs. The Toledo Rockets hold onto their second spot in the standings.

What a weekend for baseball! The Easter holiday pushed the games up a day to starting on Thursday and finishing on Saturday. Thursday was also Major League Baseball’s opening day with 15 games throughout the day.

The midweek weather didn’t cooperate across the Midwest, but chilly weekend baseball went on everywhere without interruption.

The MAC schedule is almost halfway over and the standings are tight. A lot of movement is still coming. How did the past week change the standings without Bowling Green playing conference games? Let’s take a look!

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Week 7 Conference Standings

Miami is the biggest mover of the week, jumping from the outside looking in all the way to fourth. I was optimistic about the Zips’ chances and excited that they beat a ranked Duke team this year, but they haven’t figured out the MAC schedule yet. Miami swept the Zips and vaulted up the standings. Miami’s starters dominated the series and held Akron to 3.7 runs per game.

Toledo maintains their second place in the MAC with another series win, this time over Northern Illinois. The Rockets took two of three and scored 23 runs in the first game of the series. That really skews the series stats, but the stats don’t matter. What does matter is the gap that Toledo continues to build between themselves and seventh place. It’s still a tight group behind Bowling Green but Toledo is on top of the group for now.

Eastern Michigan passes Kent State after taking two games from Central Michigan and Western Michigan taking two games from Kent State. The Eagles are 6-3 while Kent State and Western Michigan set the cut line at 5-4. Kent State stays in the top six after a series loss and faces EMU in the series of the week in week seven.

Eastern Michigan and Central Michigan played a super tight series, but Central Michigan can’t find a way to win a series this year. The Eagles sandwiched the weekend with two one-run wins, while the Chips had a bit more breathing room in their three-run win in the second game to force the rubber match.

Northern Illinois is still having its best season in a few years but appears to be fading after their start put them second in the MAC. I think their record is normalizing, but they are the team that is best positioned to jump out of the bottom five. Unfortunately, they play Bowling Green this week.

Ball State is on the comeback trail with a sweep of Ohio. It took some game-one heroics to sweep the series, but the Cardinals are on a four-game win streak with the softer portion of their schedule coming up. With how tight the group above them is, second place is within reach if they keep putting teams away.

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Almost Halfway Home: Strength of Remaining Schedule

It’s too early to look at this and think it’s worth more than a grain of salt, but at almost halfway into a balanced schedule it does add context to the team’s records. Usually, this reaches its peak value in week 12. At that point, there is enough data to tell what a team’s quality is but the remaining schedule can be varied enough to be important for the stretch run.

After four weeks of MAC baseball, there are at least 18 games left for every team. There are teams with definitively harder schedules than other teams. Like Ohio, Northern Illinois and Toledo. Ohio has six series remaining, one is Akron and every other team left has a winning record in the MAC. This has a tendency at this point to break down into two categories: Akron is still on your schedule, or Bowling Green is on your schedule. They tip the winning percentage in of the teams remaining in a major way. Ohio is wishing they had picked up more wins before this back stretch.

Northern Illinois is in the same boat. Wins will be hard fought from here on out, Ball State and Central Michigan remain as the only teams with losing records on their schedule. Don’t look now, but Ball State is surging.

Toledo is a misleading team to find here. The Rockets have collected their wins early and their remaining schedule is 35-28 for a .556 winning percentage. They face Bowling Green in the final week of the season and if they are removed, the remaining schedule is 26-28. That’s much more manageable and even if Bowling Green is a baseball war machine, it’s one three-game series.

Ball State, Western Michigan and Akron have the easiest schedules in the MAC for the rest of the conference season. What a relief for 1-11 Akron. They aren’t guaranteed wins the rest of the season, and they just got swept by a team that entered the series 4-5. Still, the Zips have played three of the top four in the MAC and should have an easier road.

Western Michigan has a winning record so far (5-4) and has survived what might be the teeth of their schedule. Things can still change but four of their remaining seven series are against teams that are not thriving. If the Broncos can take advantage, they could find themselves in a good place for the MAC Tournament.

Ball State is the most interesting team to me. I’ve been very surprised by their 2-7 start, but a sweep against Ohio has them looking like they’re on the right track. They’ve completed their series against the top three teams and are on a four-game win streak after week seven. They are three games out of second place and the record of the teams that remain is 28-38. The Cardinals could get on a run and look like a different team at tournament time.

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Quick Notes:

• Miami at Akron: Akron couldn’t generate outs from the mound and the balls in play were too much. Miami’s pitching dominates the Zip’s bats and stays fresh. The RedHawks used four pitchers through the first two games. Akron scored 13 total runs this week and Miami’s Ty Batusich drove in 10 runs in 19 plate appearances.
• Ohio at Ball State: Ball State slugged nine home runs in the series to outpace the Bobcats. Ohio’s offensive numbers weren’t bad but they couldn’t generate the extra base hit. Ball State picked on the Ohio bullpen, they gave up 13 earned runs in 8.1 innings of work. Ball State needed a furious comeback in the series opener and that killed the Bobcat spirit. Also, Merritt Beeker on the mound a day later had a similar effect.
• Central Michigan at Eastern Michigan: For as down as Central Michigan has been this season, they played a very even series with Eastern Michigan. The Eagles won two one-run games on Thursday and Saturday, while the CMU bullpen had a tough weekend. They blew a save after a wonderful start from Adam Mrakitsch in game one and entered the bottom of the ninth in game three with a 5-1 lead.
• Kent State at Western Michigan: Kent State applies the offensive pressure with near-constant base runners and stealing bases to eliminate double plays and always be in scoring position. Western Michigan pitchers kept Kent State off the bases and the offense did enough to win two games. Turner Doran appeared in every game for the Broncos, eventually taking the loss in game three.
• Northern Illinois at Toledo: Game one was a 23-3 romp for Toledo but the other two games were close games. Toledo would hold on and win the series with a win in game two 8-7, but the Huskies won game three 5-3. Adam Brouwer and the NIU pitchers worked around baserunners and avoided giving Toledo the timely hit they so desperately needed.
• Bowling Green: DJ Newman didn’t take the mound against Xavier, clearly saving him for conference games. Bowling Green avoided the sweep with an 8-4 win in game three. Nic Good is their normal game-two starter and he pitched one inning. Either a conservative move, he got rocked or an injury. He didn’t get rocked, so I hope it’s Bowling Green prioritizing MAC games.

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Notable Performances

Northern Illinois should probably have stopped pitching to Toledo’s Garrett Pike. He hit one home run in a mid-week game against Youngstown State and then hit five more against the Huskies. Somehow he only drove in ten runs, but it’s demoralizing when one batter on the other team has back-to-back two home run games.

Ball State’s Michael Hallquist continues his quest for the Player of the Year Award. This week he added three home runs to lead the MAC with 11 and he’s switched to shortstop. That kind of production from a premium defensive position is every manager’s dream.

In Toledo’s first two games this week they scored a combined 42 runs. Trey Wright drove in eight against Youngstown State. Wright is behind the plate and at third base for Toledo but his bat has earned him playing time. He’s hitting .333 since March 8th with 9 walks, this week is the highlight of the season so far.

Adam Mrakitsch keeps pitching well and keeps getting hung out to dry by his bullpen. I wasn’t a pitcher but I’ve seen how dominating a game that ends in a loss can wear down a pitcher’s morale. He hasn’t stopped yet, which speaks to his mental toughness to focus on what he can control.

Ball State’s Merrit Beeker has electric stuff, but sometimes even he can’t control it. This week he had it working and gets a win with seven innings pitched and 13 punchouts. He leads the MAC with 16.1 strikeouts per nine innings and total strikeouts with 59. That feels like an arm an MLB team would take at least a flier on in the draft.

Miami is using Peyton Olejnik in a very interesting way. He almost always enters in the fifth inning and completes the game. He’s essentially a starter coming out of the bullpen. This week he entered a tie game and didn’t give up a run in 4.1 innings.

Jacob Tabor and Lukas Galdoni both inherited runners in high-leverage situations and got out of them. Tabor completed the four-out save in game two for Toledo and kept the deficit at two runs in the finale. Galdoni entered in the sixth inning of Miami’s game three with runners on second and third. He was able to strand those runners, eventually, he gave up one of his own but he got the 3.1-inning save.

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A look ahead to Week 8:

Eastern Michigan heads to Kent State for the series of the week. Both teams have winning records in the MAC and are perilously close to the cut line. Runs will be at a premium, but the teams prevent runs in different ways. Eastern Michigan needs to get as many outs from their starting pitchers as possible. The bullpen has struggled this season in the fewest innings pitched in the league. Kent State is the opposite. Their starters haven’t been consistent and their bullpen is the best in the MAC. Eastern Michigan could find themselves sweating out small leads late for a very exciting series.

If Ball State is actually surging and making a run, Miami could jump up into the MAC Tournament spots and fall out the next week. On the flip side, Miami could solidify themselves in the top half with a series win and keep Ball State out for another week.

Western Michigan and Ohio both can score runs, but the Broncos have one of the best bullpens in the MAC. That’s what splits the two squads on paper but Ohio’s Gideon Antle is one of the best hitters in the conference. Western Michigan is still tinkering with their starting pitchers and might have found the mix that works for them last week against Kent State.

Akron has a tough series against Western Carolina as the odd team out. Bowling Green and Toledo are heavy favorites in their series against Northern Illinois and Central Michigan respectively. Anything can happen and that’s why the games are played.

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Series Scores: