Bowling Green State University Athletics
Two Mid-Week Games Scheduled For Falcons
April 27, 2009 | Baseball
April 27, 2009
BOWLING GREEN, OHIO -
BGSU Baseball Notes/Stats (vs. Toledo/Notre Dame) 
This Week
Tues., April 28
Toledo (18-20) at Bowling Green
Steller Field (1,100) - 3 p.m.
Wed, April 29
Bowling Green at Notre Dame (25-16)
Eck Stadium (2,500) - 6 p.m.
Fri. - Sun., May 1-3
Ohio (20-16, 13-5 MAC) at Bowling Green
Steller Field (1,100) - Friday (3 p.m.) - Saturday/Sunday (1 p.m.)
TWO NON-LEAGUE GAMES ON TAP FOR FALCONS BEFORE OU SERIES
The Bowling Green State University baseball team will play a pair of non-league game this week hosting Toledo on Tuesday (3 p.m.) and traveling to South Bend, Ind. on Wednesday to play Big East foe Notre Dame (6 p.m.). The Falcons will host Ohio this weekend in an important Mid-American Conference East Division battle with games scheduled for Friday (3 p.m.), Saturday (1 p.m.) and Sunday (1 p.m.) at Steller Field.
SERIES INFORMATION
BG has a 110-81 series lead over Toledo...BG has won the last three, including a 15-9 win in the game played last week at Toledo...UT took two of three from BG in 2007 to break a nine-game BG winning streak in the series...BG has won 12 of the last 14 series meetings...Notre Dame has a 38-23-1 edge in the series with BG...the two programs have not played since 2006 when the Falcons earned an 11-8 win on the road...that win broke an 11-game losing streak with the Fighting Irish...the two teams have only played five times since the 2000 season...Ohio owns an 80-57-1 series edge over Bowling Green...the teams played five times last season, three times in the regular season and twice in the MAC Tournament, with BG taking four of the meetings, including a sweep of the regular season series at Ohio...there were two one-run games and a two-run contest among the five games last season...BG has won six of the last eight series games and have won the series from the Bobcats the last two times they have played in Bowling Green - 2007 (BG, 3-0) and 2002 (BG, 3-1).
LAST WEEKEND
With the wind blowing out to center field in excess of 20 miles per hour for all three games of the series with Miami, the Falcons took two-of-three contests. The two teams combined for 26 home runs (17 by BG), 84 runs and 99 hits. BG took the first game by an 18-15 count as the two teams hit 15 home runs and had 41 hits. BG hit a school-record nine home runs to account for 15 of their runs. Senior Ryan Shay hit three home runs and had five RBI while Logan Meisler's three-run homer in the seventh proved to be the difference. Meisler also had five RBI in the game. BG won the middle game of the series, a 15-10 victory, as junior T.J. Blanton had a pair of two-run homers, one of those in the third inning to put the Falcons ahead for good. Blanton had four hits in the game. On Sunday in the finale, Miami scored three runs in the top of ninth for a come-from-behind 14-12 victory. BG followed a seven-run RedHawk sixth with six runs of their own in the bottom half to take a 12-11 lead. Junior Derek Spencer capped a big week with three hits, two of those home runs, and five RBI.
WHAT'S AHEAD
BG plays eight of its final 12 games on the 2009 schedule at home, including two of its last three league series.
SPENCER HAS BIG WEEK
Finally healthy after a hamstring pull slowed him earlier in the month, junior third baseman Derek Spencer had his best week of the season. Spencer hit .706 (12-for-17) for the week with six home runs, 10 RBI and 12 runs scored. In the three games of the Miami series, Spencer hit .750 (9-for-12) with five home runs, eight RBI and nine runs scored. He hit at least one home run in each of the four games last week and had at least two hits in all four contests. He hit two home runs, both solo shots, in the first game of the Miami series and had two in the Sunday game, both two-run homers. Spencer had a 2.083 slugging percentage and an .813 on-base percentage for the Miami series and a 1.824 slugging percentage and a .773 one-base percentage for the week. The Oregon, Ohio native is now hitting .384, third on the team, for the season and .408 in MAC play, 10th in the league. He has a hit in 15 of his last 22 at-bats covering the last five games. Spencer is tied for fifth in the MAC with 10 home runs and tied for seventh with 40 RBI for the season. With his home run explosion last week, Spencer has 24 career round-trippers. He needs two homers to join teammate Brian Hangbers, who has 26, among the top 10 in school history.
SHAY LEADS THE WAY
Senior shortstop Ryan Shay continues to lead the Falcon offense from his lead off position in the batting order. The All-MAC and All-Mideast selection last season hit .474 (9-for-19) last week with five home runs, 10 RBI and 12 runs scored in the four games. All nine of his hits for the week were for extra bases as he added three doubles and a triple. In the Miami series, he hit .429 (6-for-14) with four home runs, eight RBI and eight runs scored. In the non-league game at Toledo last week, Shay was a single away from hitting for the cycle going 3-for-5 with two RBI, on his two-run homer in the fifth inning. Shay is hitting .397 for the season, fifth in the MAC, with 39 RBI (tied for 9th in MAC), 49 runs scored (tied for 3rd), 10 home runs (tied for 5th), 62 hits (3rd in MAC), a .492 slugging percentage (5th), a .699 on-base percentage (3rd) and he has worked 27 walks (tied for 4th). The Garden City, Mich. native ranks among the BG career leaders in at-bats (693, 2nd), runs scored (156, 4th), hits (232, 4th), doubles (49, t-3rd), assists (539, 2nd), total bases (337, 6th) and games played (192, 8th). Shay has hit safely in 30 of 37 games this season, and 76 of his last 89 games dating back to the beginning of last season. He has two or more hits in 54 of those 76 games he has hit safely in over the last season and a half. Since the beginning of the 2008 season, Shay has hit .406 (149-of-367) with 32 doubles, 15 home runs, 75 RBI and 102 runs scored in 89 games. He has a .627 slugging percentage since the beginning of 2008 and a .487 on-base percentage. In his last 14 games, Shay is hitting .460 (29-for-63) with 23 RBI and 26 runs scored. He has scored a run in 13 of those games, had an RBI in 12, and recorded 11 multiple-hit games.
ELKINS EXTENDS STREAK
Junior Tyler Elkins extended his hitting streak to 10 games by hitting safely in all four games last week, hitting .444 (8-for-18). During the 10 games, Elkins has hit .455 (20-for-44) with 10 RBI and 11 runs scored. Elkins, who had a 13-game hitting streak earlier this season, has hit safely in 29 of his last 32 games this season and leads the team with a .406 average, third in the MAC. He is hitting .403 in MAC play. The Hamilton, Ohio native leads the team with 14 doubles, tied for fifth in the MAC, and is fifth with 26 RBI. His 19 RBI in MAC play is second on the team.
BGSU BLOOP SINGLES
The Tuesday game against Toledo will air live on BCSN with Greg Franke and Rick Poland providing the call of the contest...the Falcons are hitting .338, the top figure in the MAC, as a team and averaging 8.0 runs per contest...the opposition is hitting .314 and averaging 8.6 runs...BG has won seven of its last 10, 14 of its last 19 games and 17 of its last 24...BG has had at least 10 hits in 28 games this season, including 22 of the last 26...BG is hitting .355 as a team in MAC play, which leads the league...BG leads the MAC with 32 sacrifices thus far this season...BG hit .421 at team in the four games last week and .424 in the Miami series...BG had an .830 team slugging percentage last week and a .492 team on-base percentage...BG hit 19 home runs last week in the four games - they came into last week having hit 25 home runs in the first 33 games of the season...freshman Jon Berti hit .467 (7-for-15) last week with an .800 slugging percentage and a .556 on-base percentage...Berti, a 36th-round draft choice of the Oakland A's last summer, is fourth on the team hitting .382 for the season and he leads the team in MAC play hitting .449, third in the league...junior outfielder Mark Galvin hit .450 (9-for-20) last week with six RBI and five runs scored...Galvin is hitting .331 for the season...junior center fielder T.J. Blanton hit .467 (7-for-15) in the Miami series with two home runs and five RBI...Blanton is hitting .354 for the Falcons out of the #9 spot in the order and has 17 extra-base hits (eight doubles, seven home runs), which is second on the team...the series win for the Falcons was its first over Miami since the 2004 season...BG had its biggest inning of the season scoring 10 runs in the fourth inning of the first game against Miami...the Falcons had two three-run homers and a solo shot in the frame...BG has scored nine or more runs in seven of their last eight games, averaging 11.4 runs over the period while they have a .370 team batting average in those eight contests.
NEXT WEEK
In the next-to-last week of the regular season, Bowling Green will take the week off for final exams before resuming MAC play with a three-game series at Buffalo on May 8-10.
