WKU Baseball Notebook: Miller Struggling, Tops Trying To Find Stride
The minor league season is in full swing and the Toppers are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s already been a better season than the 2017 campaign was and, believe it or not, a post season appearance isn’t out of the question for WKU.
Here are some quick news and notes on all things WKU baseball.
Let’s start with the lone ProTopper whose season has begun — Anderson Miller. It’s been a rough start for Miller, who is slashing .197/.286/.387 in his first nine games of the Double-A season.
Miller has just one multi-hit game and logged four RBI in the second game of the year, but is just two for his last 13 (.154 average) over his last four games.
As for Andrew Edwards, he’s still listed to be on the Natural’s 7-day DL, where he’s been since the season began.
Danny Hudzina is still in Cardinals extended spring training (I think, if anyone is a Cardinals fan and has access to that article, I’d love if you could let me know what it says about him, if at all) and, to the best of my knowledge, is still slated to open the year when the State College Spikes do so in June.
Now lets turn our attention to the baseball Toppers. The good news is the Tops have surpassed last year’s win total with 18 games left to go this year (which shows you just how bad that team a season ago was).
However, the Tops have fallen on hard times when it comes to consistent play. Since the beginning of this month, WKU is 4–5, which included a three-game losing streak to Southern Miss (season finale), Vandy (a midweek game the bullpen couldn’t hang on to) and the series opener against Marshall from April 8–13. Also in there is the most recent result, a 10–1 blowout loss to one of the hottest teams in the nation in Tennessee Tech.
WKU boasts three hitters who are hitting over .300 on the year — Steven Kraft (.363), Jacob Rhinesmith (.340) and Ray Zuberer III (.324) — all of which are good enough to be in the top 25 of the conference. Kraft’s .363 average is the fifth best mark in the league.
As a team, WKU has logged the second most triples in the circuit, but have also grounded out in to the most double plays. The Tops’ 97.2 fielding percentage is also tops in C-USA.
We do a lot of complaining about the bullpen, but the Tops are third in the conference when it comes to saves, having logged nine of them. Ben Morrison has seven of those while Evan Acosta and Michael Martin each have one.
Morrison’s seven saves rank him second in the league, behind only FAU’s Zach Schneider’s 11.
Ryan Thurston is also one of the top pitching performers in the league, having logged 61 strikeouts, which is the fifth most.
The Tops will travel to Birmingham this weekend for a three-game set with the Blazers. UAB is in fourth place while the Tops are tied for fifth, so a series win could do wonders for WKU.
