Live Stats
INDIANAPOLIS – The Butler baseball team will travel to Dayton on Tuesday to play the Flyers at 3 PM. The Bulldogs have won-four straight and will use this game as the final tune-up before the start of conference play.
Scouting Dayton (13-12-1)
The Flyers will host the Bulldogs after winning an Atlantic-10 Conference series against the UMass Minutemen last weekend. Second-year head coach Jayson King is looking to improve on his 21-31 record from a year ago.
The Flyer offense is led by freshman Benjamin Blackwell, who leads the team with a .293 average. Junior first-baseman Alex Brickman provides the power for the Flyers in the middle of the lineup. Brickman has hit four home runs and knocked in 14 RBI on the season. Senior Connor Echols' 27 hits and 17 RBI are both good for the team lead.
Right-hander Cole Pletka is set to take the mound for the Flyers on Tuesday. The 6-foot-8 junior holds a record of 1-2 after four starts. In 14 innings pitched, Pletka has struck out 19 batters and surrendered only 21 hits. The junior's best game of the season came in his previous start against Kent State on March 26. In five innings of work, Pletka struck out eight batters while walking just one.
Butler and Dayton have met 45 times dating back to their time as foes in the Midwestern City Conference. Dayton leads the all-time series 24-21 against the Bulldogs.
BIG EAST Standings
Creighton, 14-6
Butler, 16-9
St. John's, 12-10
Seton Hall, 10-13
Xavier, 8-18
Georgetown, 7-19
Villanova, 6-19
Graziano Goes for Second Win
LHP
Joe Graziano will take the mound for Butler on Tuesday afternoon at Dayton. The sophomore is 1-2 on the year with a 2.61 ERA. Graziano picked up his first win of the 2019 campaign last week at Northern Kentucky. He threw five full innings against the Norse, allowing one run off five hits. Graziano stuck out a season-high five batters in the contest. He has 15 K's on the season.
25-for-25
Harrison Freed and
Brody McGrath are the only two Bulldogs to start in all 25 games this season. Freed leads the team in batting average (.408), at-bats (103), hits (42), triples (3), total bases (76), and slugging percentage (.738). McGrath has reached base safely in all 25 games.
Before the BIG EAST
Third-year head coach
Dave Schrage has Butler at 16-9 overall as the team gets ready to jump into the conference schedule. BU went 17-7 last year before the start of conference play and 19-8 in his first year at the helm in 2017. Before Schrage's arrival, BU went 8-20 in 2016 before playing at Villanova.
Freed is on Fire
Harrison Freed already has more hits in 2019 (42) than he recorded in all of 2018 (41 in 51 games). A career .303 hitter, Freed has 105 total hits in a Bulldogs uniform. 41 of his 105 hits have gone for extra bases. Freed has 20 doubles, seven triples and eight home runs in his three-year career at BU.
Hit #100
Zach Jarosz recorded his 100th hit at Butler on Friday, March 29th in the win over Southern Illinois. The middle infielder went 2-for-2 with an RBI and a walk from the nine-hole in the order.
