No. 14 Baseball Hits the Road for Alabama Classic
March 08, 2012 | Baseball
March 8, 2012
Game Day Links
| Friday, 2 p.m. | #14 Louisville vs. Oral Roberts | CardsTV Audio | |
| Saturday, 5 p.m. | #14 Louisville vs. Alabama | CardsTV Audio | |
| Sunday, 11 a.m. | #14 Louisville vs. #29 East Carolina | CardsTV Audio |
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The 14th-ranked Louisville baseball team returns to the road for the first time since the opening weekend of the season for the DRASH Alabama Classic this weekend in Tuscaloosa, Ala.
The Cardinals are scheduled to play Oral Roberts on Friday at 2 p.m., ET, host Alabama on Saturday at 5:05 p.m., and East Carolina on Sunday at 11 a.m. Live play-by-play of the weekend will be available to subscribers of CardsTV at the links above. Live scoring for the games in Tuscaloosa will be available through the Gametracker feature by using the links at the top of this page.
Weekend Rotation for the Cardinals
For the fourth straight weekend, the Cardinals will use the starting rotation of junior right-hander Justin Amlung (1-2, 3.60 ERA) on Friday, sophomore righty Jeff Thompson (3-0, 2.50 ERA) on Saturday and senior right-hander Travis Tingle (2-0, 3.21 ERA) on Sunday.
Series Overview
Friday's game will be the first ever between Louisville and Oral Roberts on the baseball diamond. Entering Saturday's game, the Cardinals have lost eight straight to the Crimson Tide and trail 8-1 all-time in the series. Louisville and Alabama have not played since 1994. Sunday's game will be the 14th meeting between U of L and ECU with the Pirates holding a 10-3 edge. This will be the first meeting between the Cards and Pirates since April 2005.
Cardinals Finish Homestand at 7-2, Including Three Straight Wins
The Cardinals finished the first of two scheduled nine-game homestands at Jim Patterson Stadium with a 7-2 record, including three straight wins. The homestand began with a three-game sweep of Oakland and continued with a mid-week win over Eastern Kentucky. After a disappointing mid-week loss to Eastern Illinois, Louisville earned a series win over a talented Pepperdine club before closing with the win over Indiana. The EKU game also started a stretch in which U of L will play 22 of 26 games at home from Feb. 22 to April 3.
Louisville Offense Shows Improvement Early in 2012
After struggling for much of 2011, the Louisville offense has shown considerable improvement early in 2012. Entering the weekend, the Cardinals are hitting .322 as a team, nearly 70 percentage points higher than the .253 team average they had in 2011. In 12 games this season, Louisville has finished with 10 or more hits eight times, while last season, they achieved that total just 16 times in 61 games. In the scoring column, the Cardinals have scored seven or more runs six times in the first 12 games, while in 2011, they did not score seven runs in a contest until the 13th game of the season.
Notes and Trends to Follow...
Louisville has played error-free baseball in four straight games marking the longest stretch of games without an error for the Cardinals since they went four straight during the 2010 NCAA Regional (June 4-7)... With his two hits on Tuesday, senior Stewart Ijames has hit safely in nine straight games, the Cardinals' longest streak of the season... The home run for Ijames last Sunday was his team-leading fourth of the season and the 37th of his career. The rest of the Cardinals on the 2012 roster have a combined nine career home runs (Gardner 3, Wasserman 3, Seiz 2, Chittenden 1)... In the three-game series with Pepperdine, Louisville pitchers allowed only seven runs on 14 hits with 24 strikeouts in 21 innings... With his 2-for-4 performance on Tuesday, sophomore Adam Engel earned his team-leading seventh multi-hit game of the season... Through 12 games this season, Louisville has stolen 24 bases in 29 attempts while limiting opponents to only 10 in 15 attempts... Louisville is 7-0 this season when scoring first... The Cardinals are 9-0 when leading after the sixth inning... Through the first 12 games, Louisville has a .322 team batting average while opposing batters are hitting just .223 against Cardinal pitching.
Alabama Classic Opens Busy Stretch for Cardinals
With its trip to Tuscaloosa, Louisville will begin a busy and challenging stretch of nine games in 12 days. While in Alabama, the Cardinals will face three programs which earned NCAA Regional bids in 2011, including No. 29 ranked East Carolina. After an off day, U of L will return home for a pair of mid-week games against Ole Miss, which is 10-2 overall and ranked as highly as 14th nationally this week. Sandwiched between its second and third off days in the stretch, the Cardinals will host a three-game set with Ball State before welcoming Ohio State for a single game to conclude the 12 days.
About Oral Roberts, Alabama and East Carolina
Oral Roberts enters the weekend at 6-5 overall after a three-game series sweep of Alcorn State. Last season, the Golden Eagles finished 39-22 after reaching an NCAA Regional.
Alabama enters the weekend at 5-7 overall after dropping a mid-week non-conference game to rival Auburn on Tuesday. Last season, the Crimson Tide finished 35-28 after playing in an NCAA Regional.
East Carolina enters the weekend at 8-3 overall after losing a mid-week game at Troy on Wednesday. Last season, the Pirates finished 41-21 after reaching an NCAA Regional.
Fans can follow Louisville baseball on Twitter at http://twitter.com/uoflbaseball and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ulbaseball.
