Chillicothe Bound

I’m going to ramble about baseball for a few moments here, despite the fact that I know virtually nothing about baseball. I know about great comebacks and great stories, though, and the BGSU baseball team’s story certainly has been an entertaining one this year to date.

Congratulations to the Falcons on a MAC East Division co-championship. The 2010 season marks the third-straight spring that Danny Schmitz and Company have won or shared a divisional crown.

And, what a great way for nine seniors to end the home portion of their careers. If you’re reading a blog entry here at BGSUFalcons.com (and you obviously are), you probably already know that BGSU swept Buffalo over the weekend. The final pitch of the third win saw one of those seniors, Derek Spencer, hit a walk-off homer for a 9-8 win over the Bulls. I can only imagine the thrill of the Falcons’ nine seniors after pulling out such a win on ‘Senior Day,’ and there’s no better way to end the home portion of your career than by homering on the final pitch of your final game there.

Obviously, no team is immune to the injury bug, of course, but it seems like Schmitz and pitching coach Rick Blanc see a top player from the prior season’s pitching staff get sidelined each year. Off the top of my head, they’ve seen guys like Frank Berry and Matt Malewitz – players who undoubtedly figured in the coaching staff’s plans – go down with injuries over the past few years. (I’m sure there have been other key players who have been injured in the past couple seasons, but as I mentioned earlier, I know virtually nothing about baseball). Somehow, though, the Falcons manage to persevere and overcome such injuries.

Things didn’t look so great for the pitching staff – and the team as a whole – about a month and a half ago. On April 10, the Falcons suffered a 32-10 loss to Ball State. Those 32 runs, now surprisingly, are the most a BGSU team has allowed in a game in school history. That loss dropped the Brown and Orange to 8-17-1 on the year, and left BG at just 2-6-0 in MAC play.

Since that time, however, BGSU has gone 20-4 overall, including a 16-3 record in conference play. The Falcons now meet that same Ball State team again, this time in Chillicothe in game one of the MAC Tournament. This season has already been a success, but the Falcons would like nothing more than to add a few more wins to the ledger and make their stay at VA Memorial Stadium (that’d be the site of said MAC Tournament). The tourney begins at 9 a.m. on Wednesday morning.

If we’ve learned anything, we’ve learned that MAC baseball is about as unpredictable as can be, and there will be seven other teams battling for a title in Chillicothe. But, if there’s one other thing I’ve learned, it is never to count these Falcons out.