Tulane Baseball Returns Home To Host Three-Game Series Against Eastern Kentucky
The Tulane baseball team (6-3), after two mid-week games this week, returns home to host Eastern Kentucky (2-6) for a three-game set from Feb. 28 - March 1 on Greer Field at Turchin Stadium. Games times are slated for 6:30 p.m., 4 p.m., 12:30 p.m.
Pitching Matchups
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 started each of the first two Fridays this season with a 7.11 ERA in 6.1 innings thrown. He has struck out nine but has also allowed eight walks and seven hits.
Cehajic hasn't had the length Tulane has been expecting out of the 6' 8" graduate pitcher. We talked to Tulane head baseball coach Jay Uhlman about that.
The Colonels will start sophomore right-handed pitcher Carson van Haaren. van Haaren is 0-1 on the year with a 11.74 ERA. He has started two games and has totaled seven strikeouts in 7.2 innings thrown.
Tulane will start lefty Beau Sampson on Saturday. The junior transfer from St. George, Utah played at the University of Oklahoma last season where he appeared in 13 games with a 1-0 record and 10 strikeouts in 10.2 innings pitched out of the bullpen. This will be his third Saturday start of the season. He has thrown six innings with 11 strikeouts.
Eastern Kentucky sends righty Jacob Price to the hill. Price, a redshirt junior, has started the season well with a 2.45 ERA and eight strikeouts in 11.0 innings thrown. This will be his third start and fourth appearance of the season.
On Sunday, the Green Wave will start sophomore right-handed pitcher Jack Frankel. Frankel hails from Plano, Texas and is in his first year with the program. 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 1-0 record to go along with a 1.64 ERA and eight strikeouts in 11.0 innings thrown. He threw a complete game with one run allowed in his last start against Harvard last weekend in earning the victory.
EKU has still not determined the team’s starter for Sunday
Coming In On A Streak
Jason Wachs, despite seeing his hitting streak snapped at 23 games following the opening game of the season against LMU, has still now reached base safely in 35 consecutive games dating back to the end of last season.
Who’s Hot in the Last Five Games
Jason Wachs has led the attack with a .450 batting average along with nine hits including two doubles, and 10 RBIs. Tanner Chun is hitting .417 with seven runs, five hits, two doubles, four RBIs, eight walks, and six stolen bases. Matthias Haas is hitting .333 with four runs, six hits, and four RBIs. Nate Johnson has three hits, six RBIs, and three runs scored.
Jack Frankel is 1-0 with a 1.29 ERA along with three strikeouts in his seven innings thrown. Jack Brafa sports a 1.80 ERA with five strikeouts in five innings worked out of the pen. Sam Larson is 1-0 with seven strikeouts in 3.2 innings thrown. Jake Toporek has thrown in a pair of games and struck out five in 3.2 innings out of the bullpen.
Tulane Trends
- Dating back to the end of last season, three of last four hits that James Agabedis III has are home runs.
- Jason Wachs and Tye Wood have reached base safely in all nine games this season
- Tulane is 6-0 this year in games that Hugh Pinkney starts behind the plate.
- The program is also 3-0 in games that Matthias Haas starts as the designated hitter.
- Haas has started at four different positions this season with a game at first, two games at third, three games in right field and three games as the designated hitter.
- After leading the American Conference last season with 131 doubles as team, Tulane is again leading the league in two-baggers with 28 in the first nine games.
- The program’s pitching is averaging an impressive 10.8 strikeouts per game to place second in the American Conference. Tulane ranked second in the league in strikeouts a year ago with an average of 9.8 per contest.
- Of the 23 new players on the roster this season, 19 have already made their Tulane debuts following the first nine games of the season. The only newbies that haven’t appeared in a game yet this season are RHP Max Mazinter, OF Cole Berge, OF/3B Matthew Major and RHP Owen Geiss.
Hitting Has Been Right on Schedule for the Greenies
The Green Wave have been gifting their pitches with timely hitting for the most part. We talked to Tulane hitting coach Walt Jones and head baseball coach Jay Uhlman about that.
There is interesting side story to this. Now Tulane hitting coach, Jones, was the head coach at EKU. He and Uhlman were asked about facing Eastern Kentucky this weekend.
Individual Conference Leaders
- Tanner Chun leads the American Conference in walks with 10, hit by pitches with four and stolen bases with seven.
- Jason Wachs ranks first in the league in doubles with five and RBIs with 16.
- JD Rodriguez is the league leader in wins with two.
Portions Courtesy Tulane Athletics
Doug has covered a gamut of sporting events in his fifty-plus years in the field. He started doing sideline reporting for Louisiana Tech football games for the student radio station. Doug was Sports Director for KNOE-AM/FM in Monroe in the mid-80s, winning numerous awards from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association for Best Sportscast and Best Play-by-Play. High school play-by-play for teams in Monroe, Natchitoches, New Orleans, and Thibodaux, LA dot his resume. He did college play-by-play for Northwestern State University in Natchitoches for nine years. Then, moving to the Crescent City, Doug did television PBP of Tulane games and even filled in for legendary Tulane broadcaster, Ken Berthelot in the only game Kenny ever missed while doing the Green Wave games. His father was an alumnus of Tulane in the 1940s, so Doug has attended Tulane football games in old Tulane Stadium, the Superdome, and Yulman. He was one of the 86,000 plus on December 1, 1973, sitting in the North End Zone to seeTulane shutout the LSU Tigers, 14-0. He was there when the Posse ruled Fogelman and in Turchin when the Wave made it to the World Series. He currently is the public address voice of the Tulane baseball team.