EAST LANSING— The Michigan State baseball team prepares to cap off its time in Corpus Christi, Texas with a game against new conference foe UCLA early Sunday morning. The game will not count towards any conference standings, though it will be the only time this season the two square off.
UCLA will enter the game 5-1, after starting the season with four straight wins. The Bruins dropped its first game to host Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Friday night before bouncing back against Washington State in walk-off fashion.
MSU owns a 6-0 record and is looking to continue to ride the winning streak. After starting last season 1-5 the Spartans look to be much improved.
Pitching looks to be the strong suit of this team with five pitchers having a zero ERA. Leading the way is junior starter Joseph Dzierwa averaging just under two strikeouts per inning pitched.
The big bat thus far for MSU has been senior JT Sokolove. Sokolove, the outfield transfer from Illinois State, is batting a .300 average along with a .812 OPS. Also swinging the bat well is sophomore second baseman Ryan McKay, hitting .312 on the year. However, as a team, MSU has yet to hit a home run.
UCLA has four hitters averaging over a .294 batting average with at least 12 at-bats. The Bruins also hit with a little more power than MSU, hitting five home runs on the year. Expect MSU to pitch away and low most of the game to induce as much weak contact as possible.
The Bruins will look to send out right-hand sophomore Landon Stump to the mound. In his season debut against Cal Poly, Stump struck out five over six scoreless frames allowing just two baserunners and picking up the win.
MSU has already used Dzierwa, junior Nolan Higgins and redshirt sophomore Tate Farquhar in Corpus Christi. The Spartans are likely to go to more of a bullpen day and could kick it off with redshirt sophomore Ryan Szczepaniak who’s already started one game in similar fashion earlier this year.
The first pitch is at 11:30 a.m. on Sunday and is being streamed live on FloCollege as the Spartans look to continue the hot start.
