Bowling Green baseball (25-13, 13-8) will hit the road on Tuesday for a non-conference game against a Big Ten opponent in the Michigan Wolverines (23-17, 8-10).
The Falcons carry with them a seven-game non-conference winning streak, with six of the seven games featuring the Orange and Brown cracking double digits on the scoreboard.
Michigan will be the first Power 4 school that BGSU has faced all season due to the fact that an April 2 match against Michigan State was postponed due to weather.
Falcon Media Sports Network’s Tyler Kavalecz and Noah Seeley will have the broadcast on WBGU 88.1 FM starting at 3:45 for pregame and 4:00 for first pitch.
Matchup History
Despite being in two different states and conferences, the teams are relatively familiar with each other, playing 62 since their series began on May 21, 1963.
Historically, the Wolverines have held the advantage over the Falcons, going 46-15-1 over the Orange and Brown, being 32-9 in Ann Arbor.
The last time BG was able to take down Michigan was on April 22nd, 2014.
Scouting Bowling Green
Although BG baseball has been on a strong non-conference streak, they are currently coming off of a two-game losing streak against fellow Mid-American Conference (MAC) team Ball State.
Bowling Green may be on a skid, but they are still fourth in the conference, and their bats remain as hot as ever with a .310 batting average that leads the conference, as well as having three of the past four games peppered by 12 or more BG runs per game.
On the mound, the Falcons’ pitching staff is prone to the big play as they let up 54 home runs, which is the most of any MAC team; however, this is paired with a 6.41 earned run average (ERA) that is fifth best in the conference.
Scouting Michigan
Out of 17 Big Ten teams, the Wolverines rank 10th in their conference, just one conference game behind Michigan State, who are nine and nine in conference play.
Statistically, Michigan is one of the most solid Big Ten teams above home plate with a sixth-ranked batting average (.290) and an eighth-ranked 0.394 on-base percentage (OBP) while also ranking sixth in hits with 387.
Pitching for Michigan also seems to be a bit of a struggle point, similar to the Falcons, as the Wolverines host a seventh-in-conference 5.29 ERA, a 14th-ranked 291 strikeouts on the season and a fourth-most 193 walks.
Falcon Four Players to Watch
Gunner Antillon (Bowling Green #41)
In non-conference games, it matters who is just hot at the right time, and it doesn’t get better in the MAC than Antillon, the reigning MAC Player of the Week.
The senior shortstop is riding a .700 batting average over the past four games with 14 hits and 12 runs batted in (RBI) in just 20 at-bats.
Brady Birchmeier (Bowling Green #43)
With the pitching staff of the Wolverines, if the Falcons want a chance to win, they will have to lean on their “big play” athletes.
Birchmeier may be on a bit of a cold streak with four hitless games in the month of April, but for the first time since March 16 against Akron, he managed to tally a hit in each game of a MAC series (Ball State, April 19)
Michigan’s roster is jammed full of heavy hitters, and none of them is more consistent than Casillas, who has the second-highest batting average in the Big Ten (.415).
The graduate student infielder’s contact numbers are also very high, with a third in the Big Ten 59 hits.
If Casillas is the “consistency guy for the Wolverines, then Voit is the risk taker as he gets on base nearly as often as Casillas, with a .497 OBP, but he does one thing better: stealing bases.
When it comes to snagging an extra base, Voit is one of the shiftiest in all of the Big Ten, nabbing eleven, which puts him 11th in the conference.
