How Wichita State baseball keeps finding a Sunday cure for its midweek pain
Wichita State has spent this baseball season living two very different realities.
There is the version that shows up in the middle of the week, short on pitching, thin on answers and too often overrun by regional rivals from power conferences. Then there is the version that keeps showing up on Sundays, the one that scratches out series wins, protects its place in the American Conference standings and gives the Shockers a reason to believe their season is still building toward something meaningful.
Right now, the Sunday version is winning out.
WSU once again found its weekend answer at Eck Stadium, rebounding from a one-run loss to Rice on Saturday with a 13-3 run-rule victory in seven innings Sunday to clinch another conference series. The Shockers won 5-1 on Friday, lost 3-2 on Saturday, then unloaded offensively in the finale to improve to 26-19 overall and 10-8 in the American.
That is good enough for fourth place in the conference standings with three league series left, giving WSU a two-game cushion for the coveted top-four seed in next month’s conference tournament. That distinction matters because the top four teams automatically advance into the double-elimination portion of the bracket.
“Everybody knows how important that top-four seed is,” WSU coach Brian Green said. “If you’re not in the top four, then that makes life really challenging. We knew how important (Sunday’s game) was. We’ve just got to keep stacking series wins.”
That has been the defining skill of this team.
Through six conference weekends, WSU has not swept anyone. It also has not been swept. The Shockers have won four series by a 2-1 margin and lost two by the same count, turning nearly every weekend into a test of resilience.
And no day has brought out the best in WSU quite like Sunday.
The Shockers are 9-1 on Sundays this season, including a perfect 5-0 mark in the American. The only caveat is that WSU’s finale against Tulane, a loss, was played on a Saturday. But in the rhythm of the season, the trend remains hard to ignore: when a weekend is there to be rescued or secured, WSU has repeatedly found its best baseball at the end.
Sunday’s win over Rice was the latest example.
After entering the series with just one extra-base hit in its previous five games, WSU’s offense finally snapped out of a prolonged skid. The Shockers piled up 12 extra-base hits against Rice, including six doubles and six home runs, their most in any conference series this season.
The exclamation point came from Jayson Jones, who ended Sunday’s game early with a three-run home run for a run-rule finish.
“We were in a rut,” Green said. “It seemed like every hitter was in an 0-2 count, the timing was late, we were too passive. We had to take a more aggressive approach.”
Last Friday’s electric crowd at Eck Stadium helped set the tone for the weekend, as Matthew Cuccias delivered one of WSU’s best starts of the season with 7 1/3 strong innings in a 5-1 win.
“When you get a crowd like that, you want to perform and create a little more momentum,” Green said. “It meant a lot to our players to see Eck rocking like that. And it honestly gave us real energy. It was just an awesome night.”
The pitching was just as encouraging.
WSU issued only five walks in the three-game series, matching its lowest total in any three-game series this season. Cuccias gave the Shockers length on Friday. Brady Hamilton, recently moved to the bullpen, turned in his best relief appearance since the change by holding Rice to one run in 5 2/3 innings Saturday with six strikeouts and no walks. Caleb Reed then handled an emergency start Sunday well enough to give WSU a chance to get its offense rolling.
Hamilton’s outing was strong enough that Green said the right-hander could move back into the weekend rotation for this week’s road series at UTSA, a top-40 RPI opponent currently tied for first place in the American standings.
That is the part of the season that makes WSU difficult to judge.
The Shockers are nearing 30 wins and remain in position for a top-four conference tournament seed after being picked eighth in the 10-team preseason poll. They own a road series win over UAB, another top-40 RPI team, and have generally found ways to survive the grind of league play.
At the same time, WSU is not close to the NCAA Tournament bubble. Its No. 150 RPI ranks ninth out of 10 teams in the American, dragged down in large part by a weak nonconference slate and its midweek struggles.
Those struggles have been glaring.
WSU is 1-6 in midweek games this season with the lone victory coming against Division II Washburn. Against Division I midweek opponents, the Shockers are winless against Kansas State, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma State while allowing an average of 9.0 runs per game.
The common thread has been pitching depth.
Not a single WSU starter has made it through the third inning in a midweek game. Six of the seven midweek starts have lasted two innings or fewer, forcing the Shockers to piece together nearly entire games with bullpen arms while still trying to preserve their best options for the weekend.
That challenge has only been compounded by injuries. WSU has lost three rotation arms to season-ending injuries: Ryan Morrison, Brok Eddy and Mitchell Johnson. For a program still trying to rebuild its pitching depth, that has left Green with little margin for error outside of conference weekends.
“We’re going into those midweeks short on the mound and it’s been really frustrating because you have to staff it,” Green said. “We’re basically nine innings short in the midweek and that’s disappointing.”
That reality will be tested one final time Tuesday when WSU hosts No. 11-ranked Kansas at 6 p.m. at Eck Stadium.
Green is not pretending the midweek results are acceptable long term. He wants WSU to be able to stand toe-to-toe with Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Nebraska and other regional powers on any night of the week.
But this season, with this pitching shortage, the math has often forced the Shockers to make a practical calculation. The weekends matter most. The American standings matter most. Protecting arms for conference series has become a necessity, even if it has created an uncomfortable midweek pattern.
“I hate to say it, but we have to use (midweek) to prepare for the weekend,” Green said. “I don’t want that to be the signature of this program. We want to get after those guys. I want to beat KU and K-State and Oklahoma State. But right now, with our injuries, that’s just kind of where we’re at.”
That leaves WSU in an imperfect but still promising place.
The Shockers have not solved all of their problems. The midweek losses have exposed the thinness of the pitching staff. But they have also shown an ability to compartmentalize, recover and keep their conference goals intact.
And for a team picked near the bottom of the American, that matters.
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