Tuesday, March 13, 2007
There is a positive aspect to two teams on a losing streak facing off against one another.
One team has to snap it.
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These past couple weeks are the first time that we’ve had a little routine and been able to be outside.
- junior left fielder John Allman
Kansas (11-8), who will play host to the Penn State Nittany Lions (2-8), hopes to be the one to do it beginning tonight at 5 at Hoglund Ballpark.
Penn State continues its tour through Kansas this evening after being swept at No. 12 Wichita State this weekend.
Fresh off a sweep of its own at No. 9 Arkansas (13-5) this weekend, Kansas will use its midweek opponents, Penn State and Wichita State, as final preparation before Big 12 Conference play kicks off next weekend.
“I think it’ll prepare us for Texas A&M pitching a little better,” sophomore lefty Andy Marks said. “It’s hard to go from seeing those guys this week to seeing one of these teams who is one of the best pitching teams in the country. Hopefully, it’ll help us this week.”
Marks is referring to the matchups the Jayhawks faced before traveling to Arkansas last week. The games against Tabor College and Baker University resulted in 18-2 and 24-7 victories.
What the Jayhawks got in confidence and batting practice, they surrendered in competition. The 42 runs scored in the two games served as a sign of the low level of difficulty the NAIA pitchers presented to the Jayhawk lineup.
However, the alternative to playing Tabor and Baker were to simply not play at all, opting instead to forgo the three cancelled games earlier in the season. Tabor and Baker gave Kansas a chance to get on the field, which still ranks highest on the importance scale.
“These past couple weeks are the first time that we’ve had a little routine and been able to be outside,” junior left fielder John Allman said.
Allman, who had his 10-game hit streak snapped against the Razorbacks in game one of the series, did all he could to make up for it the rest of the weekend. He went 4-8 with a run scored on Saturday and Sunday. The junior continues to lead his team with a .409 batting average, more than 100 points higher than the team’s .302 season average.
In its first midweek game of the season tonight, Penn State will face an unranked opponent for the first time in seven games.
Shortstop Matt Cavagnaro leads the Nittany Lions starters entering the evening’s game. Cavagnaro is a solid .318 at the plate, a far cry from his team’s .234 batting average.
Kansas right-hander Andres Esquibel (2-0, 1.40) will look to keep him and the rest of the Nittany Lions at bay, as he makes his second start of the season. In 19.1 innings pitched this season, the junior has 18 strikeouts and just three walks.
Penn State will start Seth Whitehill (0-2, 6.92). With numbers quite opposite from Esquibel’s, Whitehill has walked 10 batters and struck out only two in 13 innings of work.
Nonetheless, Coach Ritch Price knows his team needs such a game to get ready for what’s to come.
“I deliberately put Stanford on the schedule after the first two weekends and then I gave us two more weekends at home before we came here to prepare to go to A&M,” Price said. “You can look at the box scores right now and the two hottest teams in the country are Vanderbilt and Texas A&M.”
Kansan senior sportswriter Alissa Bauer can be contacted at abauer@kansan.com.
— Edited by Joe Caponio
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