For a struggling MSU baseball team, having to play an afternoon game after coming home at 4 a.m. from a road trip earlier in the morning may not have seemed like the best way to break out of a slump.
But fatigue and cool weather could not keep the Spartan bats from coming alive in a 9-4 victory over Western Michigan at Kobs Field on Tuesday. MSU now stands 15-15 overall and 3-7 in the Big Ten.
All the Spartan scoring came in the third and fourth innings as they broke open a previously scoreless game.
In the six-run third inning,the Spartans loaded the bases on singles by sophomore outfielders Brett Wattles and Bob Malek and when junior Kyle Geswein was hit by a pitch.
After a balk by Broncos pitcher Bryan Haveman pushed across MSU’s first run, junior infielder Don Watchowski drove in another run with an infield hit, which also reloaded the bases for junior outfielder Chris McCuiston.
McCuiston then provided the big blow of the inning and the game by blasting a grand slam over the left field fence to give his team a 6-0 lead. It was his second grand slam of the year.
McCuiston said before coming to the plate, he tried to remain steady by remembering how calm he was before he hit his first grand slam against Illinois earlier in the year.
“I’ve gotten a lot more relaxed - I used to be real tense with the bases loaded and saying I’ve got to get the runs in,” he said. “Now if you’re calm up there, everybody knows they can do it. I know I can do it so you go out there and do it.”
In the three-run fourth inning, MSU loaded the bases for freshman infielder James Moreno, who delivered with a three-run double down the left field line. It was the third time in the game Moreno came to the plate with the bases loaded.
“That kind of got everybody realizing that the game was in our hands,” Moreno said.
Indeed it was, as the nine runs were more than enough run support for junior starting pitcher Nick Bates, who allowed four runs and seven hits in seven innings of work.
After seeing the offense sputter for the past week, Moreno said it was nice to see the team hitting again.
“Nine runs, I think that’s more than we’ve scored in the past three or four games,” he said. “We haven’t scored that many runs, but it’s good to get everybody in the lineup swinging the bat pretty good.”
Next for the Spartans will be a game against Grand Valley State University in Allendale today at 3 p.m. before a weekend home series against Ohio State.
The team played back-to-back doubleheaders at Minnesota on Sunday and Monday and didn’t arrive back in East Lansing until 4 a.m. Tuesday. The Spartans lost three of their four games to the Gophers over the weekend.
Head coach Ted Mahan said he fears the bizarre weekend schedule and having to play six games in four days may cause some harm to the team.
“I think it will catch up to them tonight - that’s what I told them,” he said. “(Today) we might be more sluggish. You know how it is especially (with) young guys, you can do it for a night, but it catches up to you,” he said.
As for Tuesday’s performance, Mahan said he was pleased with the way his team bounced back from a tough weekend.
“Hopefully it’ll get us going,” he said. “We got few breaks which we haven’t had recently, but we played well today and it was a good win against a good team.”
McCuiston said he hopes Tuesday’s win, which was only the Spartans’ third in 10 games, will get the team going in the right direction for the remainder of the season.
“This is always a pick-me-up for the team when you have games like this when everybody is doing well and playing relaxed and loose,” he said. “This is a huge bonus for us not only going into (today), but for the weekend. Hopefully it will be positive. ”
