The baseball team has played 18 games away from home to start the season, and will finally play at home this weekend. However the Bulls still have one road game standing in their way, although this one will require far less travel.
Buffalo (7-11, 1-2 Mid-American Conference) will head a few miles south on Wednesday to take on Canisius (11-13, 2-1 Metro-Atlantic) in a mid-week matinee.
The Bulls are looking to do a pair of things: continue their impressive showing on offense, and to find ways to close games, something they have struggled with all season long.
Buffalo comes into the contest 1-6 in one-run games and has six losses in its opponents' final at-bat.
Head coach Ron Torgalski admits that he's sick of watching his opponents celebrate walk-off wins but believes that the losses in the late innings don't rest solely on the closer.
"It seems like it's one play that opens the flood gates," Torgalski said. "I keep telling them you've gotta play nine innings. You can look back at little things in the previous eight innings that can completely change the game. Our closer came in [on Sunday] and made pitches, but we've got to make plays. If we didn't make base running mistakes we wouldn't have even needed to use a closer."
Although Buffalo has struggled to win close contests, it isn't for a lack of run production.
Buffalo is hitting .338 as a team, and has scored 9.2 runs per game so far this season. Led by a familiar face in junior catcher Tom Murphy, Buffalo has had no trouble scoring this season.
"Murph is just going to be a solid guy no matter what the situation," said senior outfielder, and cleanup hitter Dan Scahill. "You can always expect the same thing out of him."
The difference this year is that Murphy is getting plenty of offensive help from his teammates, providing little respite for pitchers attempting to work their way through the Bulls' lineup.
The Bulls' lineup will provide an interesting challenge for the solid pitching staff of the Golden Griffins.
Canisius features a quartet of good starters highlighted by ace Devon Stewart and his 3.79 ERA. Since the Griffs started their number-three starter Rohn Pierce on Tuesday, Buffalo will likely see Stewart, Billy Martin, or Garrett Cortright on Wednesday.
Cortright serves as the second starter in the rotation and boasts a 4.46 ERA. Martin is the fourth starter in the rotation and his ERA sits at 6.10.
No matter whom the Bulls draw as the starter, it's in their best interests to score runs early. The back end of the Canisius bullpen boasts closer Jon Fitzsimmons who doesn't allow runs easily. Fitzsimmons has six saves and an ERA of just .090 this season. The only positive thing for Buffalo is that Fitzsimmons pitched 1.1 innings in Tuesday's win over St. Bonaventure.
On the mound for Buffalo will be someone out of the Bulls' rotation for Torgalski. Junior Corey Paige will take the mound on Wednesday; he has an ERA of 13.5. He has only pitched six innings this year. Paige will be making his first career start, but he will not be the player to take the mound.
"I'm probably going to use five or six guys," Torgalski said. "I've got a bunch of guys who haven't thrown in a while and I want to see what they can do."
Because of the fact that this is not a weekend series against a conference foe, Torgalski expects to adjust the lineup a bit more than usual.
"Mid-week you're looking to play some young, inexperienced guys to try and get them that experience to help us out on the weekends in the games that matter," Torgalski said.
First pitch Wednesday will be at 4 p.m. at the Demske Sports Complex.
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Photo: Paul Hokanson/UB Athletics
