Racers Travel to Louisville to Clash Mid-Week with No. 9 Cardinals

GAMES 12
Dates: March 9, 2021
First Pitch: Tuesday 3 p.m. ET
Location: Louisville, Ky.
Stadium: Jim Patterson Stadium (4,000)
Dimensions: 330 (LL) | 375 (LC) | 402 (CF) | 377 (RC) | 330 (RL)
Series History: Louisville leads 13-7
Last Meeting: Feb. 20, 2007 (Louisville Won 12-2)

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Murray State Baseball Notes (PDF)

Probable Starters
Tuesday – Cade Vernon (RHP) (0-0, 2.80 ERA) vs Luke Seed (LHP) (0-0, 0.00 ERA)

First Pitch
The Racers travel to Louisville, Kentucky to face the No. 5 team in the country, Louisville. Murray State is coming off a three-game series with No. 1 Arkansas. The Racers gave the Razorbacks all they could handle but fell 7-6, 11-6 and 6-0.

Inside the Matchup
This is Racers' first meeting with the Cardinals since 2007 when the two teams met in Louisville, Kentucky. The Cardinals have won the last seven contests between the teams. Murray State and Louisville will play a one-game series mid-week series on March 9.

Weekend Recap
The Racers gave #1 Arkansas all they could handle the first two games of the series, taking a one-run lead into the eighth inning on Friday night and jumping out to a 4-0 lead early on Saturday, but ultimately fell 7-6 and 11-6. Murray State outhit the Razorbacks in series finale, 6-5, but they were unable to push any runs across.

Call 'Em Butter Because They're On a Roll
Four Racers currently hold multi-game hitting streaks. Jake Slunder extended his hit streak to a team-high eight games, collecting singles in each of the games against Arkansas. Trey Woosley is right behind Slunder with a seven-game streak, tagging his first two home runs of the season over the season. Tanner Booth and Ryan Perkins each hold four game streaks. Perkins knocked in two runs for the Racers first run with a double and two singles and Booth added a double and single against the Hogs.

You Get on, I Get On
Despite just getting one hit in the Arkansas series, Jordan Cozart extended his on-base streak to ten games. Jake Slunder and Trey Woosley's on-base streaks are concurrent with their hitting streaks at eight and seven. Ryan Perkins and Tanner Booth on-base streaks also follow their hitting streak at four games.

Can I Get a Comeback?
The opposing team has scored first in seven of Murray State's eleven games. The Racers jumped on the board early in two of three games against top-ranked Arkansas and have three come-back victories on the season, including one walk-off win, 5-4 against Purdue Fort Wayne.

Stepping Up to the Plate
As a team Murray State's leadoff hitters are batting .409. Tanner Booth is 4-for-6 (.667) when leading off an inning. Jordan Cozart is .615 (8-for-13). Leadoff batter, Jake Slunder, is hitting .467 (7-for-15).

Mr. Clutch
With runners in scoring position, David Hudleson is 3-for-4, with four RBIs, including knocking in the Racers winning runs against Purdue Fort Wayne and Arkansas State. Ryan Perkins is 6-for-11 (.545) with six RBIs and Alex Crump is .500 (2-4) with two RBIs. As a team, the Racers are .295 with runners in scoring positions.

Free Passes
Walks and hit-by-pitches have haunted the Racers all season, none more so than this weekend, when the Razorbacks used 29 free passes (25 BBs and four HBPs) to score 12 of their 23 runs, including five of six runs on Sunday due to the freebies.

Strikeout Woes
The Racers strike out woes continued against top-ranked Arkansas, punching out 37 times over the weekend, including a season-high 18 in the series opener. On the season, Murray State has struck out 103 times at the plate.

Ranked Opponents
The Racers will face two ranked teams this season. Arkansas is ranked No. 1 in this week's poll by D1Baseball, Collegiate Baseball, Baseball America. Arkansas is ranked first for the first time in the history of the Baseball America rankings, which dates to 1981. Following the series in Fayetteville, the Racers travel to No.9 Louisvile to face the Cardinals.

Familiar Look
The Racers lineup has a familiar feel to it with MSU returning eight of its position player starters from last year. 5th year senior Ryan Perkins leads the team with 194 games of experience.

Scouting #9 Louisville
Louisville falls to ninth in the collegiate baseball rankings after dropping two of three against Georgia Tech and losing a mid-week game vs Morehead State.

The Cardinals found their offense last weekend at Georgia Tech, scoring 28 runs on 40 hits in three games. Louisville currently leads the ACC in stolen bases, ranks second in the ACC in runs, hit by pitch and on-base percentage, third in base on balls and hits, and fourth in batting average.

The Cardinals have been the best in the country on the basepaths this season with 32 stolen bases, 15 more than anyone in the ACC. Levi Usher is third nationally and tops in the ACC with eight, while Henry Davis and Luke Brown are tied for second in the ACC with five

Henry Davis has been the most consistent hitter for the Cardinals through 11 games, picking up at least one hit in every game so far. Davis is currently hitting .395 and ranks sixth in the ACC with 13 RBIs.

As a team, Louisville is hitting .291 through the first eleven games with 111 hits, 19 doubles, 1 triples, 11 home runs, 69 RBI, scored 78 runs and tallied 165 total bases. The Razorbacks have a .432 slugging percentage, .397 on-base percentage and stole 32 bases.

Racers Travel to Louisville to Clash Mid-Week with No. 9 Cardinals

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Players Mentioned

Tanner Booth

Luke Brown

Jordan Cozart

Alex Crump

David Hudleson

Ryan Perkins

Jake Slunder

Cade Vernon

Trey Woosley

Murray State University Athletics