Having lost six of the last seven games, the Ball State University baseball team now has a two-game break from Mid-American Conference play.
The Cardinals (12-18, 3-6 MAC) play two mid-week games this week, with the first being today against the Indiana Institute of Technology, a member of the NAIA.
"If we win these games it might give us a little bit of momentum going into the rest of the conference series, which we need to do well in if we want to get in the MAC tournament," sophomore Brenden Stines said.
Stines has been the team's opening game weekend starter this season. He has pitched 41 1/3 innings compiling a 6.31 ERA and a 2-5 record.
Stines said he needs to do a better job throwing pitches in the strike zone if he wants to improve his record and ERA.
"I need to get ahead of batters more and throw my off-speed pitches for strikes," Stines said.
Despite Stines' record, he said a big part of his bad outings are a result of the Cardinals' fielding.
"We need to quit making so many errors in the field," Stines said. "It's hard to keep the pitch count down and have a good outing when there's one or two errors. That's a hard thing to deal with."
In the MAC, Ball State averages the most errors per game at 2.1, more than twice Akron's 0.95 leading average.
Stines said each start the coaches have him on a 100 pitch count. Stines said he could normally go seven innings if there were no errors.
"When you have an extra 10 or even five pitches in an inning because of errors they can start to add up," Stines said. "Then I am only able to go five or maybe six innings, making us use an extra reliever."
Coach Greg Beals said the errors have a ripple effect on the pitching staff.
"It goes a lot deeper than the obvious of putting a guy on-base and that guy having a chance to come around and score," Beals said. "It's a lot harder for a pitcher to pitch under stress, and what I mean by that is when men are on-base. Our defense is putting undue stress on our pitchers."
Beals said Stines will start today. He said it has nothing to do with wanting to change things up, but rather Stines throw two innings over the weekend due to the snow that postponed Friday's game in the third inning.
"Being cold on Friday and being cold again on Sunday we didn't feel we wanted to rush him back," Beals said. "He will pitch on Tuesday and get some solid work and then pitch on Sunday."
Ryan DeGeeter moves up from Sunday's starter to pitch on Friday. Tyler Pritchard remains the rotation's Saturday starter.
Beals said today's game against Indiana Tech is crucial to the team's success.
"All of our games at this point are important," Beals said. "They are part of the process of building things back up. We got to use these mid-week games as preparation for getting ourselves more ready for conference games."
Indiana Tech is 20-6-1 and enters today with a 14-game winning streak. The Warriors have played mostly other NAIA schools and non-NCAA Division-I programs this season.
Indiana Tech has a 3.57 ERA. Beals said he expects to see good pitching from them, but believes the Cardinals match up well.
"We need to just not beat ourselves and come out ready to play," Stines said. "If we don't were not going to win."
In actionBALL STATE VS.Indiana Tech
TIME3 p.m.
VENUEBall Diamond
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