Fitchburg State pregame

Steven M Miller, Jr

-The Bridgewater State baseball team plays a double-header versus Fitchburg today. The 12-7 Bears play seven games over the next four days. They are scheduled to play at Westfield tomorrow, a non-conference game versus Babson on Monday, and then at Mass Maritime on the Tuesday.

-Getting the start in game 1 of today's double header will be Senior Ace Jordan Richards (0-4). In 26.1 innings he has a 4.10 ERA with 3 complete games in 4 starts. He leads the staff with 18 strikeouts and he has given up 11 walks.

Since coming back up north, the Bears are 10-2. Two of those losses have been complete games that Richards has only given up four runs (Worcester State L, 2-1) and (Wheaton L, 2-1).

Richards has just been the victim of poor run support. But Fitchburg has the #6 ERA in the league with a 6.50 ERA in 170.1 innings. Despite his record he is still very optimistic about the whole situation. After his last loss to Wheaton last week he joked, "I still have my perfect record."

The game 2 starter will be freshman #4 starter Spencer Hatstat. Hatstat's last win came against Framingham last Saturday. Hatstat brings a 3-0 record in 4 appearances and 2 starts. In 21.1 innings, he has a 1.69 ERA with 16 strikeouts and 6 walks allowed.

Fitchburg State brings a 4-2 MASCAC record (10-11 overall) and looks to try to get a sweep or split with Bridgewater. Fitchburg swept Salem State, the defending MASCAC league champions. The Bears are 3-1 in the league and look to gain some ground on everyone else with the six games they play over the next few days.

-The Bears last win came versus Rhode Island college last Thursday. In a 8-4 victory freshman Ben Altman got his third victory of the year in as many starts. Bridgewater took advantage of three errors scoring 8 runs in the first six innings. But RIC came back and threatened to score the tying runs with runners on base, after a Bridgewater State miscue in the infield. Junior Brian Schilling came into the game and retired the last two batters to pick up his fourth consecutive save.

The full game recap is right here

-I accidentally found out that Umass Boston has rescheduled to play the Bears at the end of the month. The Baseball team has had four cancelled games, due to the poor weather. The game has been rescheduled for 4/30 at home (3:30 pm start). The game has been scheduled right before the MASCAC league championships, for the automatic bid to the NCAA regional tournament.

-We will try to bring you the highlights once they become available.