Wichita State baseball’s midweek woes keep piling up against high-major foes
The Wichita State baseball team’s midweek woes against power-conference opponents continued Tuesday night and by now it is becoming difficult to ignore.
The Shockers again ran into familiar problems in a 10-6 loss to Kansas State at Eck Stadium, as shaky pitching put them in an early hole and left them chasing the game the rest of the evening. WSU scattered 13 hits and got another monster night from star slugger Jayson Jones, but the same issue that has haunted the program in these games under manager Brian Green showed up again: the pitching depth simply did not show up.
The loss dropped WSU to 21-13 this season entering an important American Conference road series this weekend at conference-leading UAB in Birmingham. And that is what makes the midweek frustration so notable. The Shockers have been solid in league play to sit 5-4 and just two games out of the lead. On weekends, WSU has been capable of holding its own. In midweek games against regional power-conference opponents, it has too often looked outmatched.
In 23 midweek games against power-conference opponents over the last three seasons under Green, WSU is 2-21 and has been outscored 211-97. That’s a 114-run gap and 9.2 runs allowed per game. The Shockers have now lost 16 straight midweek games against such competition with their last win coming on April 3, 2024 in a 7-6 win over Kansas at Eck Stadium.
There is context to add to the discussion, of course.
WSU is almost always the underdog in these matchups. The schedule has routinely included multiple games against KU, K-State and Oklahoma State, while Oklahoma and Nebraska have also been frequent opponents. Those are not exactly soft spots on the schedule. Every one of WSU’s 23 midweek power-conference games under Green has come against top-75 RPI competition and most have been against opponents that finished inside the top 50 and played in an NCAA Regional. The level of difficulty is real and it doesn’t help the Shockers are 1-9 in those games decided by three runs or fewer.
Still, the Shockers have shown in recent years that being overmatched on paper does not mean being noncompetitive.
Under interim head coach Loren Hibbs in 2023, WSU went 5-4 in those same kinds of games while putting together a 30-win season that ended with Hibbs being named the American’s Coach of the Year. That team beat OU and K-State twice and knocked off No. 16 Oklahoma State in Stillwater. It is worth noting that WSU did struggle the previous season, compiling a 2-8 mark in those games under Eric Wedge as part of a disappointing 21-36 campaign.
WSU appeared to use Tuesday as a chance to try to build some confidence for a pair of arms that have struggled of late. The Shockers gave Brady Hamilton his first midweek start of the season just four days after he threw 83 pitches over the weekend, perhaps hoping a shorter outing could help the junior settle in after a rocky stretch that has left him at 3-4 with a 6.13 ERA as a weekend starter. Hamilton allowed two earned runs in two innings. The plan then shifted to freshman Ethan Rogers, another pitcher in search of steadier footing, but his outing unraveled almost immediately. Rogers walked all three batters he faced on 14 pitches and was charged with three earned runs without recording an out, sending his season ERA soaring to 13.03.
Midweek games during conference season often become a stress test of depth. For WSU, those games have repeatedly exposed the thin spots.
The offense, at least, did its part to keep the game interesting.
Jones continued his remarkable season by going 4 for 5, extending his hitting streak to 25 games and raising his team-best batting average to .393. The streak is now the eighth-longest in program history, another entry in what has become one of the best individual offensive seasons in the American.
It is obvious from WSU’s current No. 193 RPI that the Shockers remain a long way from seriously entering the at-large conversation for the NCAA Tournament. But if the program is ever going to climb back into that kind of relevance again, then proving it can beat power-conference opponents in its own region figures to be a fairly important step on that path. Those midweek games may not define a season by themselves, but for a program trying to raise its ceiling, they are one of the clearest measuring sticks available.
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