PISCATAWAY, N.J. – Rutgers baseball steps out of Big Ten play for a midweek matchup against St. Peter's on Wednesday at 3 p.m. at Bainton Field. BTN Plus will provide a stream of the action and WRSU 88.7-FM is set to deliver the radio broadcast.
The Scarlet Knights are coming off a series victory over Nebraska, the team's seventh series win this season for the most since 2013 with four weekend sets still remaining. Senior
John O'Reilly pitched into the ninth inning on Friday to win for the fifth time in seven starts, as classmate
Kyle Walker came through with a go-ahead RBI double in the sixth inning of the 4-2 triumph. The Cornhuskers responded by taking the Saturday contest, 12-4, but RU rallied to win the rubber game. Down 4-2 in the fifth, junior
Nick Matera hit a three-run homer with two outs to put the home team ahead, while classmate
Carmen Sclafani followed to make it back-to-back long balls. Redshirt sophomore
Tommy Genuario tossed 3.2 scoreless innings out of the bullpen to hold the lead.
Rutgers is now at 21 wins through 36 games to be seven better than last season's pace. In addition, it was the quickest to 20 wins since 2010. That has in part to scoring 24 more runs and an ERA down from 6.09 to 4.57 at this point in the season compared to 2017. Another mark of improvement in the team is being +14 in RBIs with two outs. The Scarlet Knights had six more on Sunday to make it 84 on the season compared to 70 by opponents.
Matera had eight RBIs in four games last week to bring his season total to 27. The catcher owns 16 extra-base hits on 11 doubles and five homers for a .489 slugging percentage. Freshman
Mike Nyisztor also has 27 knocked in as one of six Scarlet Knights with 21 or more RBIs. He joined sophomore
Kevin Welsh and
Dan DiGeorgio with five hits last week. For the season, Sclafani leads the lineup with a .317 batting average, while Walker is first with a .436 on-base percentage.
On the bases, the Scarlet Knights have 31 stolen bases in their last 12 games to bring the season mark to 1.72 per game, 24
th nationally. Junior
Jawuan Harris, who has 17 this year, is eight away from matching Doug Alongi (1991-93) for the school record. DiGeorgio is also in double digits at 12 and Nyisztor is a perfect 10-for-10 in attempts.
Junior
Serafino Brito paces the pitching staff with 21 appearances in 2018, a mark that ranks first among Big Ten pitchers. The right-hander has collected 28 strikeouts in 29.0 innings with a .233 average against. Genuario, who transitioned to the staff this season after being an outfielder, has not allowed a run in his last five appearances, which spans 9.2 innings. The bullpen as a group has held opponents to 127 hits in 136.2 innings this season. Sophomore
Eric Reardon is set to make his fifth start on Wednesday. His longest appearance was a five-inning performance with five strikeouts in a win over La Salle.
NOTES
Rutgers has turned 35 double plays this season after having 38 all of last season … RU leads the Big Ten with 11 triples … the Scarlet Knights are 16-4 this season when scoring six or more runs in a game and 51-13 since 2016 … the pitchers have held opponents to two or less runs in a game eight times this year after doing that four times in all of 2017 … the offense has 20 games reaching double-digit hits and eight games with 10 or more runs … a total of 29 players on the roster are from New Jersey.
THE OPPONENT
St. Peter's is set for two midweek games, taking a 7-1 loss against Fairleigh Dickinson Tuesday before making the trip to Piscataway. Before that, the Peacocks fell short in search of their first victory of the season with a 6-4 home loss to NJIT last Wednesday. Nick Ciocco leads the lineup with six doubles and has hit one of the team's five home runs. The staff ERA is 12.24.
Rutgers is 22-2 all-time against St. Peter's, including a pair of victories when the programs last played in 2016.
UP NEXT
Rutgers starts the second half of its Big Ten schedule with a weekend trip to Purdue. The Saturday game will air live on Big Ten Network.
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