BEAUMONT, Texas – The Lamar University baseball team is geared up for its final midweek home contest of 2017 when it hosts Texas Southern at 4 p.m. Tuesday afternoon in non-conference action at Vincent-Beck Stadium. The contest opens a four-game homestand for the Cardinals.
LU (24-17) has a 6-3 record in their midweek contests this season. Two of the losses were at the hands of ranked opponents (Texas and LSU) and the other a familiar Southland Conference rival in a game out of conference play (Northwestern State). One of the wins in midweek action was against Texas Southern on Feb. 15 in a 5-2 game.
The Tigers (15-24) started that game firing with two quick runs in the first inning, but LU's pitching quickly settled down after
Reid Russell blasted his fourth home run of the season to tie it in the bottom of the first. He finished the game 1-of-4 with three runs batted in and one scored.
Reigning Southland Conference Hitter of the Week
Trey Silvers, who went on a 5-of-11 surge at Abilene Christian, had two of the Cardinals' seven hits in the first round with the Tigers. The top five of the order were 6-of-19 with three of the runs scored and all five RBI.
Once LU got through the Tigers' rally in the first, it's pitching threw up eight shutout innings with just two hits and three walks allowed.
Brent Janak started the game and was followed by
Brett Brown,
Galen Andrews and
Jimmy Johnson.
Lamar grabbed the lead in the second inning and held it at 3-2 until it put up another run in each the sixth and eighth innings.
Ryan Johnson (1-1, 9.35 earned run average) – who was injured for the first meeting – will start the game for the Cardinals. He's pitched in 8.2 innings on the season, and has started LU's midweek contests since Baylor.
Silvers and
Cutter McDowell head into Tuesday's game after huge weekends at Abilene Christian. Silvers belted three homers in one game in the middle contest of the series, and totaled five runs and six RBI in the three-game slate. McDowell was 6-for-14 at ACU with two RBI and four runs scored, including a no-doubt home run in the series opener. He recorded multiple hit games in all three, and dating back to LSU had three home runs last week.
McDowell tops the Cardinals with a .372 batting average, and
Robin Adames (.345), Russell (.336), and Silvers (.310) all follow with .300-plus marks.
Bryndan Arredondo, who notched his 100
th career base hit at ACU, nears that threshold with a .299 average.
McDowell (41) and Russell (39) rank fourth and fifth in the Southland Conference runs scored, Lamar is the only team with two athletes in the top five. Silvers' big day Saturday has him crowned as the new RBI leader for the Cardinals at 38, and Adames follows closely behind with 37.
As a team, the Cardinals have a team .287 batting average and score at a 6.5 runs per game clip. Texas Southern heads in with a .266 batting average and 5.1 runs per game mark.
The Tigers are led in average by Gerrek Jimenez at .328, and he has 20 runs scored and 14 driven in. The infielder was 1-of-3 from the ninth spot of the order in the last meeting. Olajide Oloruntimilehin is the team's leader in runs scored at 26 and is tied with Karmen Dukes and Gaudencio Lucca for the lead in RBI (24). Oloruntimilehin was 1-of-3 with a run scored, Dukes was 1-of-4 with a run and Lucca was 1-for-3 in the last meeting.
Lamar will continue its homestand with a crucial Southland Conference series with Nicholls at Vincent-Beck Stadium. The Cardinals are seventh in the league standings, two games ahead of the eighth-place Colonels. The series is slated to start 6 p.m. Friday evening.
