Spar is set: Rutgers baseball prepares for 1st Big Ten series against Michigan State in East Lansing
The Rutgers baseball team will travel out to East Lansing, Michigan, this weekend to face Michigan State in a three-game series. The Scarlet Knights (18-7, 0-0) will play the Spartans (10-12, 1-2) for their first in-conference series of the season.
Yesterday, Rutgers defeated NJIT 8-3 at home, securing its sixth home win in seven games.
The Knights’ pitchers threw seven straight scoreless innings after the second inning as the offense got hot, scoring six straight innings after starting slow.
The Highlanders (8-15, 1-2) jumped out to an early 3-0 lead on junior right-handed pitcher Jordan Falco, before Falco settled in and pitched two 1-2-3 innings in the third and fourth.
As Falco found his stride, so did Rutgers’ offense, picking up its first run in the third. The Knights scored another run after graduate student outfielder Pete Durocher attempted to steal second, allowing junior infielder Josh Kuroda-Grauer to steal home.
Rutgers tied things up an inning later after Santa Maria grounded out to third to score senior infielder Cameron Love.
Senior right-handed pitcher Ben Gorski entered for Falco to start the fifth, letting up a single before pitching another pair of 1-2-3 innings in the sixth and seventh. Gorski was later credited with the win, improving to a 3-1 personal record on the year.
The Knights took the lead in the bottom of the fifth after a Love single scored Durocher. Rutgers would then add a run in each of the next two innings before scoring its last two in the eighth.
Graduate student left-handed pitcher Joey DeChiaro slammed the door shut in the top of the ninth, matching the day’s theme and pitching one final quick inning for the Knights.
Rutgers ended the game with 14 hits to NJIT’s six, finishing its six-game homestead with 51 runs.
Now, the Knights will look to face a Michigan State team that’s already got a taste of conference play, losing a series to Maryland 2-1 this past weekend.
Ignoring the result, the Spartans took both losses to extra innings. Both games ended with Michigan State falling short in the tenth inning by one run.
Leading the Spartans’ offense is Jack Frank, who has a batting average of .355. Frank put up six hits on 13 at-bats in the series against the Terrapins (19-6, 2-1). Frank also leads the team with 33 hits. The next highest, and the only other player with more than 30 hits, is Dillon Kark, with 31 hits.
Joseph Dzierwa will likely pitch for Michigan State against Rutgers in game one. Dzierwa has a 2-1 record on the season and a 4.18 earned run average.
For the Knights, senior left-handed pitcher Justin Sinibaldi has usurped sophomore right-handed pitcher Christian Coppola as the day-one starter. Sinibaldi holds a sparkling 4-0 season record and is coming off a dominant performance against UConn, where he pitched a nine-inning complete-game shutout. Sinibaldi was awarded Big Ten Pitcher of the Week for his efforts.
Coppola has slid to the day two starter after a slow start to the season, letting up three runs on five hits in 5.2 innings this past weekend.
On offense, Rutgers has continued to be exceptional. The team cracked the 300-hit mark with its win against the Highlanders and has 308 hits on 917 at-bats. This comes out to a team batting average of .336, the highest in the Big Ten.
Kuroda-Grauer leads the charge for the Knights with an outstanding batting average of .435. The infielder leads all Division 1 hitters in hits through games played on March 26. Behind him is sophomore outfielder Trevor Cohen with a batting average of .386 and Santa Maria with an average of .374.
Rutgers’ explosive offense has been the leading factor in its success thus far and will need to stay relevant this weekend when both teams attempt to secure their first in-conference series win of the season.
Game one between the Knights and the Spartans will take place on Friday at 3:30 p.m. at McLane Baseball Stadium at Kobs Field. Game two will start a day later at 3:30 p.m., and the series finale is slated for Sunday at 1 p.m. The games will be broadcast on Big Ten Plus.
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