Tulane Baseball Heads to Birmingham for Week 2 of Conference Play

The Tulane baseball team is in north-central Alabama this weekend to take on the University of Alabama-Birmingham for the second American Conference series of the year for both schools. The Green Wave took two of the three games in their league opener against Memphis in Turchin Stadium. The Blazers lost two of their three games at East Carolina last weekend.

The Wave comes in to the weekend at 14-12 overall after Wednesday's 15-5 mercy rule win over Grambling. UAB is 15-10 on the season once it outscored Jacksonville State on Wednesday, 16-11.

Friday's Pitching Matchup

The Green Wave will start graduate student Trey Cehajic on Friday. The right-hander went 5-2 last year in his second year as a member of the Green Wave. He sported an ERA of 4.89 with 57 strikeouts in 57 innings worked. He has started the first six Fridays this season with a 1-1 record, a 7.20 ERA in 25.0 innings thrown. Cehajic has struck out 31 while allowing 15 walks and 30 hits this season.

Cehajic has had his challenges as of late. The Shreveport graduate student has given up 22-hits and 16-runs over his last three games that spanned a total of 11-and-two-thirds innings.

The Blazers are starting junior right-handed starter Mason Steele. Steele is making his seventh start of the season. He is 2-2 with one complete game and a 4.91 ERA. Steele has pitched 33.0 innings with only nine walks and 31 strikeouts.

Saturday & Sunday Starters

Tulane will start sophomore right-hander Jack Frankel on Saturday. Frankel is in his first year with the Wave. Last season, while at Liberty, he went 4-3 with a 3.40 ERA. He also struck out 32 in 45 innings pitched. Frankel has been the team’s best starting pitcher in the early going with a 1-2 record to go along with a 4.45 ERA and 16 strikeouts in 28.1 innings thrown. He threw a complete game with one run allowed against Harvard (2/22) in earning the victory. This is his third Saturday start of the season.

UAB has not announced the team’s expected starter for either Saturday or Sunday.

Tulane’s Sunday starter is also to be determined depending on the results and relief pitcher usage through the first two games of the series.

Scouting UAB

"Their Friday night guy (Mason Steele) is pretty good," Tulane coach Jay Uhlman told us. "The two guys they've (usually) thrown on Saturday and Sunday are freshmen.

"Their (UAB's) offense is predominantly right-handed," he continued, "Their approach is to right field, so the ball usually goes there. They know how to play to their park.

"Over the course of this past weekend, you saw a lot of the teams in our conference bunting and running," Uhlman told us. "Much like professional baseball, nobody bunts all year, they get to the postseason (and) everybody starts bunting, because it's winning baseball time. So they start to know their personnel more, (asking themselves) 'Do I have a better (chance) of moving guys into scoring position (with a bunt) to get a hit, or do I just let this guy hit?' There's some of that.

"Their (UAB's) RPI is good," he said when looking at their schedule. RPI is a ranking system used primarily in NCAA college baseball to evaluate teams based on their win-loss percentage (25%), opponent strength of schedule (50%), and opponents' opponents' winning percentage (25%). The Blazers' RPI ranks 43rd in the nation at the beginning of this week. For comparison, Tulane's RPI is 206th.

"I'm expecting a battle (at UAB) like every other weekend in our conference."

Ripples

- Dating back to the end of last season, three of last five hits that James Agabedis III has are home runs.
- Jason Wachs has reached base safely in all 26 games this season
- Johnny Elliott has reached base safely in his last 10 games. Elliott has not been in the Green Wave lineup since an appearance Friday night against Memphis. Coach Uhlman did not disclose what is going on with Elliott, but said he is "day-to-day."
- Nate Johnson is hitting .367 with three home runs and 22 RBIs in the games he starts this year.
- Kaikea Harrison leads the team with 10 multiple run scored games.
- Tulane sports an 11-5 record this year in games that Hugh Pinkney starts behind the plate.
- The program is also 3-1 in games that Matthias Haas starts as the designated hitter.
- Haas has started at four different positions this season with five games at first, eight games at third, six games in right field, and four games as the designated hitter.
- Nate Johnson has started at three different spots on the infield with seven starts at first, five at second, and three at third. He also has batted in six different spots in the starting lineup order (4th - 9th).
- Tye Wood (LF), Kaikea Harrison (SS) and Tanner Chun (CF) are the only three players on the team to start all the team’s games at the same position all season long.
- Wood and Nate Johnson are tied for the club lead with seven two-out RBIs.
- Nolan Nawrocki and Brett Rowell have the team’s only successful pinch hits on the year
- After leading the American Conference last season with 131 doubles as team, Tulane is again among the leaders this season and are currently the league leader in two-baggers with 60 in the first 26 games.
- The Green Wave leads the conference in walks (156) and are third in stolen bases (42).
- Tulane is third in hit by pitches (44) and fifth in fielding percentage (.971)
- The program’s pitching is averaging an impressive 9.9 strikeouts per game to place fourth in the American Conference. Tulane ranked second in the league in strikeouts a year ago with an average of 9.8 per contest.
- The Tulane pitching staff has recorded 12 games with double figure strikeout totals this season.
- The program is third in shutouts (1) and fourth in ERA (4.81).

The series at UAB's Young Memorial Field has much different start times than what is seen at Turchin. Friday's game begins at 5:00 p.m., Saturday is set for 2:00 p.m., and Sunday for 1:00 p.m. Though all games are available on ESPN+, games can be heard in New Orleans on WRBH 88.3 FM.