PISCATAWAY, N.J. – Entering the stretch run of Big Ten play, Rutgers baseball hosts No. 13 Michigan for a three-game series at Bainton Field for the second-straight year. The set will begin with a 2 p.m. game on Friday before a 1 p.m. start on Saturday and a noon first pitch on Sunday. BTN Plus is slated to provide a full broadcast for the last two games and a one-camera stream for the opener. WRSU 88.7-FM has the radio call each day.
Sunday's game will be the culmination of the Vs. Cancer Foundation fundraiser to support children's cancer research and children receiving cancer treatment. The program has raised over $40,000 towards the cause since 2013. Click
here for more information.
The Scarlet Knights have three Big Ten series remaining on the schedule, also traveling to 10
th-place Maryland and hosting second-place Minnesota to make it 6-of-9 conference contests at home to close. RU, previously beating Penn State, Michigan State and Nebraska in series, is 1.5 games behind the Spartans in the standings for the final spot in the playoffs.
This will be RU's fourth weekend series versus a team appearing in the national polls, as the team has played 10 games against such an opponent. The highlight was winning the series at No. 27 Florida Gulf Coast on the backend of the spring break trip.
Rutgers has won 2-of-3 in its past four series at Bainton Field dating back to last season. Overall this year, the team owns a 10-5 mark at home with wins in six of the last seven outings. The offense is hitting .299 at the familiar surroundings, while the pitchers hold a 3.02 ERA. RU has won seven weekend series altogether, the most in a campaign since 2013. The last season with eight weekends to the ledger was 2010. In addition, the program has been as high as seven games over .500.
Most recently, the Scarlet Knights rolled to a 15-4 Tuesday victory over Columbia. The bats exploded for two five-run rallies and totaled 12 RBIs with two outs, bringing the season number in the situation to 103. Redshirt sophomore
Kevin Blum led with the way with a career-high four RBIs, as sophomore
Kevin Welsh and redshirt freshman
Dan DiGeorgio also had three-hit afternoons. Sophomore
Eric Reardon earned the win on the mound with one run permitted over five innings.
DiGeorgio enters the weekend on a nine-game hitting streak, owning 13 hits over that span. He is 11
th in the league with 35 runs scored overall and one of seven players in the lineup with at least 20 RBIs. Matera leads the way with 32 knocked in, blasting five homers. Junior
Carmen Sclafani paces the team with a .458 slugging percentage and senior
Kyle Walker is first holding a .446 on-base percentage with 22 walks drawn.
On the base paths, junior
Jawuan Harris has 20 stolen bases, ranked No. 13 nationally, and leads all active Division I players with 80 career swipes. That puts him five short of matching Doug Alongi (1991-93) for the school record. DiGeorgio (15) and freshman
Mike Nyisztor (11) are also in double digits to help the team sit 18
th in the nation at 1.83 steals per game. The 75 overall are already tied for ninth-most in a season in school history, picking up 30 in the last 12 games.
Rutgers will be led in the weekend rotation by senior
John O'Reilly once again. The Saturday starter will be determined later and graduate student
Karl Blum will go on Sunday. O'Reilly is 3-0 at home this year, allowing just two earned runs over 23.0 innings for a 0.78 ERA. The right-hander is second in the school record books with 46 career starts, fifth with 281.1 innings and ninth with 165 strikeouts. His 67.0 innings lead the staff in 2018 and are sixth-most among Big Ten pitchers. Blum led Rutgers with a 0.98 ERA in six appearances in April, allowing only two earned runs in 18.1 innings of work. He logged a career-high five innings last Sunday at Purdue and was not charged with an earned run against.
Junior
Serafino Brito paces the pitching staff with 22 appearances in 2018, a mark that ties for first among Big Ten pitchers. The right-hander has collected 30 strikeouts in 31.0 innings with a .227 average against. Redshirt sophomore
Tommy Genuario has surrendered two runs in his past six appearances to lower his ERA to 3.00. The converted outfielder went a career-best four frames of long relief in his last performance at Purdue. The bullpen as a group has held opponents to 135 hits in 152.2 innings this season for a .238 average against.
NOTES
Rutgers has turned 38 double plays to match the total from last season … head coach
Joe Litterio is tied for third in program history with George M. Case (1950-60) with 118 wins as RU skipper … Rutgers leads the Big Ten with 14 triples … the Scarlet Knights are 18-4 this season when scoring six or more runs in a game and 53-13 since 2016 … the pitchers have held opponents to two or less runs in a game 10 times this year after doing that four times in all of 2017 … the offense has 23 games reaching double-digit hits and 10 games with 10 or more runs … a total of 29 players on the roster are from New Jersey.
THE OPPONENT
Michigan started off the season 4-11 before ripping off a 20-game winning streak, the second-longest streak in the country this season. That was snapped last weekend in a series loss at Iowa. Overall, the Wolverines are 17-1 at home, 8-9 on the road and 2-3 at neutral sites to be No. 13 in the latest
Collegiate Baseball poll. The 12-2 mark in the Big Ten is one game ahead of Minnesota for first place. The pitching staff ranks No. 19 nationally with a 3.25 ERA, as Friday starter Tommy Henry has 65 strikeouts in 66.0 innings and a .203 average against. Johnathan Engelmann is hitting .373/.442/.557 with 33 RBIs and 17 stolen bases, while Jesse Franklin has lifted nine home runs.
Rutgers trails the all-time series to Michigan, 5-4. In last season's series at Bainton Field, the Scarlet Knights defeated the 17
th-ranked Wolverines, 12-5, in the opener by breaking open a 4-4 game with six runs in the sixth inning. Sclafani hit two long balls in the triumph. However, Michigan rallied to take 6-3 and 8-3 victories after.
The Wolverines will be the first team since Cincinnati in 2013 and 2014 to make weekend visits to Bainton Field in consecutive seasons.
UP NEXT
Rutgers is off next week for final exams before hitting the road next weekend to face Maryland.
Follow Rutgers Athletics on
Facebook and Twitter
(@RUAthletics) for all of the latest news and updates. For specific content regarding baseball, follow the program on Twitter (
@RutgersBaseball), Instagram
(@rutgersbaseball), Facebook (
/BaseballRU) and Snapchat (rutgersbaseball). For additional updates, please download the
Gameday App.
