No. 18 Baseball Visits Georgetown for Weekend Series
April 05, 2012 | Baseball
April 5, 2012
Game Day Links
| Thursday, 3 p.m. | #18 Louisville at Georgetown | CardsTV Audio | |
| Friday, 4 p.m. | #18 Louisville at Georgetown | CardsTV Audio | |
| Saturday, 12 p.m. | #18 Louisville at Georgetown | CardsTV Audio |
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The 18th-ranked Louisville baseball team takes to the road for its first BIG EAST Conference series away from home as the Cardinals play a three-game set at Georgetown this weekend.
The series will begin on Thursday at 3 p.m., ET and will continue on Friday at 4 p.m., and Saturday at noon. Live audio of the series will be available to subscribers of CardsTV at the links above, while live scoring will be available through the Gametracker feature on the baseball schedule page.
Series Overview
Entering the weekend series, Louisville holds a 12-3 advantage in the all-time series with Georgetown, which started in 2006. The Cardinals have won four straight in the series and six of the last seven against the Hoyas, including all three games last season during a series sweep at Jim Patterson Stadium. On the road, Louisville is 7-2 against Georgetown having won all three previous series. In their most recent visit to Shirley Povich Field, the Cards sandwiched 5-0 and 10-3 wins around a 2-1 loss in 10 innings on May 7-9, 2010.
Cardinals Atop BIG EAST Standings After Two Weeks
After opening BIG EAST Conference play with a series sweep against Cincinnati, the Cardinals followed with a series win victory against visiting Villanova last weekend for a 5-1 league record through the first two weeks of conference action. Louisville is tied for first in the BIG EAST standings with USF and Connecticut, while Notre Dame and St. John's are one game back with 4-2 conference records.
Louisville Opens First Four-Game Road Stretch of the Season
This weekend's series against Georgetown begins the first of three stretches this season where the Cardinals will play at least four straight road games. Following the series against the Hoyas, Louisville will travel to Lexington, Ky., on April 10 for a showdown with rival Kentucky. From April 17 to April 22, the Cards will play a single game at Indiana and a three-game set at USF for their second road stretch of the season, while on May 1-8, Louisville will play a single game at Western Kentucky, three games at West Virginia and a single game at Vanderbilt for the final such stretch of the season. Overall, the Cardinals are 0-2 this season in true road games with losses at Alabama and Purdue.
Notes and Trends to Follow...
The Cardinals hold a 54-7 scoring advantage in the first inning this season and an 80-21 advantage in the first two innings... The Cardinals are 21-0 this season when leading after the seventh inning... As a team, the Cardinals are 52-of-63 on stolen bases this season, while their opponents are just 18-of-29... In the last nine games, Louisville's bullpen has allowed just one earned run in 27.2 innings pitched for a microscopic 0.33 ERA. They also have 33 strikeouts in that stretch... Stewart Ijames hit his team-leading ninth home run of the season and the 42nd of his career, which places him in sole possession of ninth place on the Cardinals' career home run list... With his four RBI on Tuesday, Ijames earned his team-leading 11th multiple RBI performance of the season.
Louisville Offense Shows Improvement in 2012
After struggling for much of 2011, the Louisville offense has shown considerable improvement during the first 29 games of 2012. Entering the weekend, the Cardinals are hitting .318 as a team, more than 60 percentage points higher than the .253 team average they had in 2011. In 29 games this season, Louisville has finished with 10 or more hits 19 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 16 times, while in 2011, they did it just 15 times overall.
About Georgetown
Georgetown enters the weekend at 14-15 overall after a 7-1 win over UMBC on Tuesday and 2-4 in BIG EAST action after earning a series win against Rutgers last weekend.The Hoyas are led by coach Pete Wilk, who is in his 13th season at the helm of the Washington, D.C., school. Last season, GU finished 23-33 overall and was 12th in the BIG EAST with a 5-22 record.
