After playing about a quarter of its season away from home, with long road trips and heartbreaking losses in the opponents' final at-bat, the baseball team will finally get a chance to celebrate at home plate this weekend.
The Bulls (7-12, 1-2 Mid-American Conference) will try to feast with some home cooking as they take on Western Michigan (11-10, 3-0 MAC) at Amherst Audubon Field.
This road-weary Buffalo team is finally home after 19 games, and that is something that head coach Ron Torgalski and his team is excited about.
"I told my guys that this is going to be a huge weekend for us," Torgalski said. "Our first home game, and a chance to maybe get a couple and get ourselves right in the thick of things. It will be good to get on our field - we've spent more nights in hotels than in our own beds for the last month. I know they're excited and I'm excited."
This will be the first meeting between the two teams since the 2009 season, when the Broncos went 2-1 against the Bulls.
With a different team, and a different coach, this year's Western Michigan team is one that is very strong on one aspect of the game.
"Western Michigan is a really good pitching team," Torgalski said. "We are going to see a couple lefties that throw it really well."
Western Michigan's Steve Laudirina and Casey Webber are that southpaw duo. They have given opposing lineups fits in their 12 combined starts. They have a combined win-loss record of 5-2, and have a 3.38 earned run average. Both guys are slated to pitch against Buffalo this weekend.
As talented as their starters are, they have a guy who is even better in the late innings. Closer Patrick Borlik has pitched 27 1/3 innings from the bullpen, and in that time has a 1.65 ERA, and a WHIP under 1.00, both great marks for a reliever. Buffalo's talented offense will have to work even harder to navigate the pitching of the Broncos, but it has the bats to do so. Buffalo is still among the leaders in the MAC in most offensive categories, with the Bulls being tops in batting average, homeruns, and RBIs.
Individually, they have six players in the top-20 for batting average in the MAC. Junior catcher Tom Murphy is tops in RBIs with 28, and junior Matt Pollock is second in runs scored with 26, as he is able to score a lot, hitting ahead of Murphy in the lineup. As a leadoff hitter, Pollock has the rare ability to hit for both average and power, as he leads the team with a .380 batting average, and is third on the team with five homeruns after going yard twice against Canisius (13-13) Wednesday.
As talented as the Bulls are on offense, pitching will be key to winning the series. The Bulls are last in the MAC in ERA with a less than pleasant 8.38. Despite that, Torgalski will try to trot out one of his senior leaders to try to stop the bleeding. "Friday is going to be [senior] Cameron Copping," Torgalski said. "Saturday and Sunday is a wait and see. [Senior] Kevin Hughes is still hurt, so we're going to wait and see where he's at to see if we can get him back into the rotation, and if not we will make some adjustments and see where we go from here."
The Bulls will hope to take some games from MAC-leading Western Michigan as they start the three game weekend series on Friday. First pitch for all games will start at 1 p.m.
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Photo: Paul Hokanson/UB Athletics
