DENVER – MSU Denver is still looking to put it all together this baseball season.
A good time to start would be in this weekend's four-game series at CSU Pueblo.
"It's been one of those years where the breaks haven't gone our way yet," MSU Denver coach
Ryan Strain said. "But no one is feeling sorry for us."
The Roadrunners have sorted through a laundry list of injuries, with many of their top players not hitting in practice during the week to give themselves a chance to be healthy for the weekend series. Pitching injuries have cropped up, too.
Then, a frustrated team's lament, on the days when the pitching is good, the offense struggles. When the offense is on, the pitching isn't.
All of that leads into what is a big series for both teams, which includes a single game Thursday at 3 p.m., a 1 p.m. doubleheader Friday, and a single game at noon Saturday.
MSU Denver is 14-16 overall and sixth in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference at 5-7. CSU Pueblo is 17-11 and fifth at 6-6. Six teams qualify for the RMAC Tournament, which is still six weeks away.
"They were playing really well early in the season, but they split at New Mexico Highlands and lost three out of four against (Colorado School of) Mines," Strain said. "So you don't really know where they're at. But we do know that it's always a tough series when we play them. They compete hard down there, and we'll need to play well to beat them."
MSU Denver, after winning three of four against UCCS two weekends ago, lost three of four to Regis last weekend.
"We could have won all four of those games, and we could have lost all four of those games," Strain said. "It's been a weird year. It was frustrating last week because we had leads in the three of the four games and just couldn't take care of business."
Just when the Roadrunners seemed to be getting a return to form from right fielder
Cam Yuran (he batted .438 with two homers and seven RBIs in the series), injuries kept All-American
Zach Schuler and
Jake Williams out of the lineup for a game.
Just when the Roadrunners get quality starts from what could be considered the Nos. 3 and 4 starters in their rotation in
Brad Helton and
Dylan Webber, they get uncharacteristic outings from stars
Jack Slominski and
Reichle Arcilise.
It's been a weird year.
"Helton just dominated (seven innings, three hits, two earned runs, eight strikeouts), but we couldn't extend the lead, and Webber was really good (seven innings, three earned runs, six strikeouts)," Strain said. "Jack had two days less rest than normal and wasn't as sharp, and Reichle just had a couple of bad pitches, and he hadn't pitched that long in a few weeks.
"In recent years, though, we probably would have scored enough to win all four of those games."
It's been a weird year.
