MWC Tournament Preview

The Mountain West Conference baseball tournament is rapidly approaching and the UNLV Hustlin Rebels look ready. With four more series to go until the tournament the Rebels see them selves in fourth place with a record of 8-10 in conference play.

Leading the way for the Rebels is first baseman Xavier Scruggs and his league leading .429 batting average to go along with his league leading 16 homeruns and 54 RBI. Catcher Braden Walker will provide some good protection for Scruggs with his five homeruns and 30 RBI to complement his .336 batting average. Look for outfielders Jesse Wright and J.J Sferra to produce well down the stretch and step up big in the tournament with key hits.

Pitcher Corey Hales will also try to lead his team to a few more victories and better his 4-2 record and 35 strikeouts. The same goes for Adam Moser who has an ERA of 3.65 and a record of six wins and four losses.

The three teams standing in the way of the Rebels are the San Diego State Aztecs, the Texas Christian University Horned frogs, and the league leading New Mexico Lobos. However, of these teams the only one with the higher team batting average are the Lobos who are hitting a combined .314 compared to the Rebels .312. The thing that is going to hold the Rebels back is their pitching. The team ERA for the Rebels is a whopping 7.08, whereas TCU, SDSU, and NMU have team ERAs of 3.55, 5.25 and 5.32 respectfully. These three teams have also held their opponents to under a batting average of .300 as opposed to a .328 batting average given up by the Rebels pitchers.

The keys to success for the Rebels are going to be to cut down on the errors and try and avoid “the big inning”. The Rebels have 61 total errors on the season, 12 of which are from infielder Anthony Morel. The innings of self destruction for the Rebels are the third and the seventh in which they have given up 52 runs a piece thus far in the season. The fourth inning has not been easy either allowing a total of 48 runs.

The tournament action starts on May 20^th in Fort Worth, Texas and will continue to May 24^th. To keep track of Hustlin Rebels log onto unlvrebels.com for the tournament schedule, game previews, and post game reports.

 

~ by jaybasile on May 3, 2008.