2024 Mid-American Conference Baseball Week 5 Recap

Week 5 is in the books and what a week it was.

There were warning signs during the Tuesday and Wednesday games that the weekend was going to be a wild one. Big numbers and big innings were popping up across the MAC, but normal starters weren’t on the mound. It didn’t matter.

On top of bullpens getting victimized all weekend, the top of the MAC standings is quite different from what we might expect. Bowling Green was picked to finish 8th by the coaches before the season started and now they are the last team without a loss in conference.

Winning is a zero-sum game. Who’s taking the losses so Bowling Green and Northern Illinois (picked 10th preseason) can be on top?

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Week 5 Conference Standings

The MAC runs through Bowling Green at current. They are the only unbeaten team in the MAC, and they have at least a two-game lead on every other team through two weeks. The only thing that remains to be seen is how Miami and Ball State finish their MAC schedule. They currently have a 3-9 combined conference record, but 24 MAC games remain for all teams except Western Michigan.

The season has plenty of opportunity to change for every team, but the Falcons have built themselves a headstart on the field.

Kent State is in second place after dropping two games against Ohio. Maybe the most surprising team is Northern Illinois and their 4-2 start. They’ve won a series against Ohio and Akron, aiming to be the most improved team in the MAC after a last-place finish in 2023. The Huskies pitchers lead the league in team ERA and WHIP through their six games and both parts have done their job. The starting staff has been the best in MAC games and the bullpen is second in ERA and first in WHIP.

Western Michigan and Eastern Michigan have each won their only series and play each other this weekend. The Broncos won their first MAC series against Toledo and the Eagles played a four-game set with Morehead State. Toledo sits at 4-2 after taking the middle game in Kalamazoo.

The bottom of the table is honestly shocking. Central Michigan and Ball State are 1-5 and struggling against conference opponents. Maybe Bowling Green is a buzzsaw this year and getting swept by them is going to happen to a lot of teams. However, getting beat 34-8 on Saturday shouldn’t happen against any conference team. I covered the Central Michigan woes last week, and it didn’t get better this weekend.

There is still time in the season to turn anything around, but 30 games isn’t a big sample size in baseball. We’re already 20% through it for most teams. Every game counts and waiting too long to figure it out is going to create high-pressure series down the stretch for some MAC Tournament regulars.

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Offensive explosion!

Something was in the air in week five and runs were easy to come by. The runs weren’t always scored by MAC teams, but across the 27 games played by at least one MAC team, the average combined run total was 19.4! Only four of the games had fewer than 10 runs scored.

The hot bats started on Tuesday night. Akron and Pittsburgh combined for 16 runs, Purdue-Fort Worth and Ball State combined for 26, Toledo and Michigan for 13, Kent State smoked Youngstown State 27-0, and Ohio and Morehead State combined for 30 runs. The trend did not stop.

Bowling Green beat Ball State 34-8 in the second game of their series and at the same time, Toledo was beating Western Michigan 21-14. Saturday’s scoreboard was full of football scores and the pitchers felt it.

The pitchers struck out nine per nine innings and walked 6.1 per nine innings, which is about in line with what the pitchers have produced to this point in the season. But the WHIP. The walks plus hits per inning pitched jumped over two to 2.14. That’s disastrously bad. The ERA followed suit and rose to 9.49. The average inning pitched by a MAC team this weekend saw two batters reach base and an earned run score.

More than a third of the home runs hit in the entire season came in this weekend. The MAC batting average through week four was .255 with 5,391 at-bats. That’s a lot of at-bats. Week 5 moved the season average to .267 and increased the on-base plus slugging 41 points! That’s huge for a sample size already that large.

I’m wildly curious to see how MAC pitchers respond. There were good weeks and bad weeks for both hitters and pitchers last year, but never as lopsided as this one. It does seem that 2024 is dominated by hitters.

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Quick Notes:

• Northern Illinois at Akron: Northern Illinois won the first two games by building early leads and letting their pitchers settle in. The Huskies scored three in the top of the first in game one and had a 5-0 advantage six and a half innings into game two. Game 2 got dicey but NIU was able to reclaim the lead and the win. The Huskies now have back-to-back series wins.
• Bowling Green at Ball State: Game 1 was the only close game of the series and all four Ball State runs came via the home run. DJ Newman pitched a good game and the Falcon hitters got to the Cardinal Bullpen. I’ve never seen Ball State get beat by anyone 34-8, let alone another MAC team. Bowling Green had 27 hits and collected 14 walks on their way to 34 runs. They completed the sweep with a relentless hit parade in game three, add another 19 hits (seven home runs) to the total.
• Central Michigan at Miami: Both teams get their first wins of the MAC season. Central Michigan got a great start from Adam Mrakitsch in Game 1, while Evan Waters pitched out of trouble constantly for CMU in their rubber match win. Once starter Keegan Batka came off the mound in Game 2 for Central, Miami came alive to score 13 runs in the final three frames.
• Kent St at Ohio: Ohio won close contests in the first two games of the series. Kent State tied Game 1 at four runs each in the eighth inning, but Ohio answered with four in the bottom of the inning. Pauly Mancino hit a walk-off single to win thew second game 10-9 after Kent State took the lead in the top of the eighth. The Flashes scored 13 runs in the fifth inning of Game 3 and salvaged a win to avoid the sweep.
• Toledo at Western Michigan: The Western Michigan formula has been big innings and excellent pitching from their bullpen. They needed both to win Game 1. The Broncos scored four runs with two outs in the eighth inning while Turner Doran was shutting down the Rockets. Toledo bounced back in Game 2 with the help of six unearned runs and seven home runs from their offense in a 21-14 baseball game. Western won the series and split the doubleheader with a 15-6 win. Seven runs in the bottom of the eighth inning sealed the deal.
• Eastern Michigan: The Eagles pitchers struggled as Morehead State scored 60 runs in their four-game series. Combine that total with the 20 runs they scored on Ohio in their midweek game and they dominated the MAC pitchers they faced. Eastern Michigan held on and forced Morehead State to leave two runners on base in the bottom of the ninth, down by one with two runs already scored. The 9-8 win kept EMU from a dreaded four-game sweep.

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Notable Performances

Baseballs were flying out of the park in Kalamazoo, with Dylan Nevar and Garret Pike hitting five of their six combined home runs in that series. Pike drove in 14 runs in 28 plate appearances this week with three home runs, two doubles and a triple in his 11 hits. He’s on an eight-game hitting streak and started the week with one RBI to his name. Pike drove in eight in game two alone.

Bowling Green was bound to have some players on this list after scoring 58 runs in four games. Catcher Garrett Wright drove in six runs with two home runs and two sacrifice flies. Outfielder Jack Krause joins him with ten hits, two doubles, two home runs and two stolen bases this weekend.

Ohio’s Pauly Mancino hit the walk-off single against Kent State as the highlight of his solid weekend at the plate and his teammate Alex Finney was on base in 10 of his 18 plate appearances.

Starting pitchers had quite the week. When runs are as frequent as they were this weekend, it’s tough to string together clean innings. Starting pitchers made up one-third of the decisions this week despite pitching more innings and much better stats.

Adam Mrakitsch is the pitcher with the worst luck this season. He threw 130 pitches in eight innings without giving up a run. He tried to single-handedly win Game 1 for Central Michigan. The offense gave him two runs to work with, but the bullpen gave up three runs in the bottom of the ninth to Miami.

Akron and Northern Illinois were in pitching duels all weekend. Spencer Atkins and Tommy Meyer didn’t pitch in the same game, but both suppressed runs. Atkins got a no-decision in a 2-1 Akron win on Sunday and Meyer got a no-decision after the bullpen gave up the lead he was diligently protecting the next inning.

Relief pitching is where the magic happened this week.

Western Michigan’s Turner Doran entered Friday’s game down by one run with the bases loaded and no outs. He didn’t allow a hit, one run did score, and he pitched two more innings without giving up a run. That was enough time for the Broncos to make their comeback and win game one.

Toledo’s Jackson Bergman didn’t enter the game to the bases loaded, but the Rockets were down 7-0 very early. He shut down the Bronco offense for 3.1 innings and Toledo tied the game by the time he left the mound.

Miami set up Peyton Olejnik with the same treatment WMU gave Doran. The RedHawks were down by one run with no outs and the bases loaded in the sixth inning when Olejnik entered the game. He got out of the inning with two strikeouts and a sac bunt that scored a run, but that’s all Central Michigan could get. He picked up the win when David Novak singled up the middle to score the game-winner in the ninth inning.

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A look ahead to Week 6:

I would be quite shocked if we saw another explosive weekend like this last one. Anything is possible in MAC baseball and everyone should understand now that no lead is safe. A seven-to-zero lead turned into a 21-14 loss. A back-and-forth 7-5 lead for Ball State got out of hand and was a 34-8 loss. Big innings, sometimes huge innings, happen all of the time.

Akron plays at Bowling Green which now looks like a mismatch on paper. Akron feels like a bad-luck loser so far this season with two convincing losses and three that could have gone their way with some batted ball luck. Bowling Green looks like a team on a mission, but three sweeps in a row is a tall task.

Ball State and Toledo is the series to watch this week and all three games are on ESPN+. Ball State is always a MAC favorite, even if they are 1-5 through two weekends. They need to get it in gear before it’s too difficult to recover. Toledo was a solid team last year, and wants to make the MAC Tournament and hang with the favorites. That opportunity is in front of them this weekend.

Central Michigan needs wins. They are not a 4-16 baseball program. Their new head coach should get a year under his belt to get acclimated to Division I baseball, but staying at the bottom of the standings is a tough pill to swallow for CMU baseball fans. Ohio has a chance to get over .500 in conference with a series win and put a team that’s usually at the top of the standings behind the eight ball.

Northern Illinois and Eastern Michigan need their pitchers to stay hot and go deep into their respective series. Miami and Western Michigan can hammer the ball, especially against vulnerable bullpens.

Kent State is the non-conference team and they play Saint Joseph’s from the Atlantic 10 conference. The A10 is roughly as strong as the MAC and Saint Joseph’s was picked to finish top three in the conference. They're not a cupcake, but I expect Kent State will use this series to get their bullpen sorted out. They haven’t been bad, but if they can match their starters in production we’ll get to see the Kent State steamroller back in action.

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Series Scores: