After winning a 3-1 game in the opener, the Ball State University baseball team cruised through games two and three with easy victories to complete the sweep against the University at Buffalo.
The Cardinals won game two on Saturday 16-1 and followed with a 9-3 victory Sunday. With the sweep the Cardinals improved to 17-9 overall, 6-0 in the Mid-American Conference, both of which lead the conference.
"There's still a lot of baseball to be played but we got ourselves off to a great start," Ball State coach Greg Beals said. "We're in the right position to have a great season now."
The Cardinals pitching staff helped the Cardinals to push the team's win streak to nine, the longest since 2006. In 27 innings, four earned runs were allowed to cross home plate. The starters turned in their best weekend of the season, allowing four runs in 19 innings of work, computing to a 1.89 ERA.
"Our pitchers beat their bats this weekend and good pitching beats good hitting usually and that was certainly the case this weekend," Beals said.
Tyler Pritchard started in game one and pitched six innings. He allowed one run on three hits and struck out seven. Pritchard began the MAC season with an ERA of 7.13 but has seen it drop to 4.86 by allowing one run in 13 innings in his two conference starts. He said he can't explain it; he just pitches and lately has been getting out of innings without trouble.
In eight innings against the Bulls, Cardinal relief pitchers gave up no runs, two hits and one walk, while striking out nine.
"We keep going to them and they keep coming up big for us," Beals said. "... We know as a team we are going to be good at the back end of the game and that we will be tough to beat in the last three or four innings."
Pritchard, who handed the game over to the bullpen clinging to a 2-1 lead in game one, said if the team leads when he's done, he's confident the bullpen will close it out.
"Our bullpen has been great obviously especially during the streak," he said. "... It's always nice to turn over a 2-1 game and still feel like it's going to hold. I feel like if I give us the lead it's going to stick."
Other than a game with the wind blowing out against Anderson University, the Cardinal bullpen has given up five earned runs in 39.2 innings, giving it a 1.13 ERA.
Leading the way for the Ball State's offense against Buffalo was Dean Anna and Wayne Bond Jr. The two combined for 11 runs, eight RBIs, two home runs, four stolen bases and a .500 batting average.
Bond's home run, which came in the third inning of series capper, was his team leading seventh of the season. In the fourth inning with two men on, Bond laced a pitch over the left field wall just inside the foul poll. Unfortunately for Bond, the home plate umpire ruled it a foul ball after a brief hesitation. The call led to Beals, who is also the third base coach when the Cardinals are batting, getting into a heated argument with the umpire. The call stood and Bond had to go back to the batter's box to continue his at-bat. Bond said he found it hard to refocus after the call resulting in him striking out.
"When I hit it I took off because I didn't know if I hit it enough to get out so I was running and when I rounded first I watched and from my angle at first it looked like it was easily fair," he said. "I didn't even think anything even close to being called a foul ball. When he called it a foul ball I was just shocked and was like 'how,' and it really angered me. It kind of ruined the rest of my at-bat but the baseball gods paid him back in that last inning when he got those foul balls off of his chest."
Beals said he had a good angle and knew it was a fair ball but at the end of the day it didn't hurt the team much.
"It was clearly a fair ball and unfortunately Dale Goodwin, the home plate umpire, who's a great umpire, just missed that call," he said. "That's going to happen sometimes. For whatever reason he didn't see the ball very well but fortunately it didn't affect the outcome [of the game]."
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