Baseball | 3/7/2016 5:11:00 PM

SAN MARCOS, Texas – Texas State will play the team's midweek game at Baylor on Tuesday. Originally scheduled for a 6:30 p.m. start, the game has been moved up to 5:05 p.m. in an effort to compensate for incoming weather possibilities.
 
Game Info: Texas State at Baylor
Site: Baylor Ballpark – Waco, Texas
Date: Tuesday, March 8
Time: 5:05 p.m.
 
Probable Pitching Matchup
#13 LHP Brandon Lewis (0-0, 6.23 ERA) vs. #35 RHP Kyle Ott (1-0, 4.26 ERA)
 
The Series                                                                                                  
Texas State trails Baylor in the all-time series, 47-22, but the Bobcats have heated up with the last four victories in the series. Head Coach Ty Harrington is 16-29 against Baylor.
 
Last season, Texas State swept Baylor for the first-ever Bobcat sweep of a Big 12 team. Texas State won the first game of the series in San Marcos, Texas, on a walk-off homer from Granger Studdard in the 10^th inning. Then, in games two and three of the series, Scott Grist and Jeremy Hallonquist threw complete game with Grist's being a shutout to clinch the series for the Bobcats.
 
In the final game of the series, the last meeting between the teams, the Bobcats scored all four runs of their 4-1 victory in the fourth inning. Theodore Hoffman took a bases-loaded hit by pitch and Jared Huber followed with a single up the middle for the first three runs. Luke Sherley kept it going with a single to centerfield to plate one more while the Bobcat defense and Hallonquist shut down the Bears the rest of the way.
 
On the Bears
Baylor is in its first season under first-year head coach Steve Rodriguez. It was a tough start to the season for the Bears, dropping three of the team's first four games, but then Baylor went on to sweep Stony Brook, beat Sam Houston State in Huntsville and win the first game of the series against Houston for five consecutive victories. The Bears dropped the last two games of the series at Houston for the team's current streak of two losses.
 
The team's top hitter right now is Darryn Sheppard sporting a .366 batting average with a team-high 15 hits and an outstanding 17 RBIs. After him, Richard Cunningham is hitting .333 with 13 hits and 12 RBIs. Kameron Esthay is also hitting .333 while Levi Gilcrease also has 13 hits.
 
Texas State will face redshirt sophomore Kyle Ott, a right-hander with a win already this season. In four appearances and one start, he has a 4.26 ERA with five strikeouts and two walks in 6.1 innings. He has given up three earned runs and five hits while allowing opponents to hit .238 against him.
 
On the Bobcats
Texas State is coming off a sweep of Incarnate Word after going extra innings against Texas. Right now, the offense is clicking with a .293 team batting average, 23 points above Baylor's .270. Currently, nine Bobcats are hitting .304 or better with seven Bobcats with double-digit hits. Jonathan Ortega and Luke Sherley lead the team with 15 hits apiece while Tanner Hill has 14 hits and four home runs. Ortega is the team RBI leader with 14 while Hill has 11. As a team, the Bobcats have knocked in 80 RBIs to just 43 for the team's opponents.
 
The Bobcats have scored 36 more runs than opponents, 85-49, with 19 more hits, 120-101. The team is slugging .465 with a .384 on-base percentage and has stolen 12 bases so far this year. Texas State exploded for 22 runs on Saturday, tying the team's largest scoring output from last season.
 
Texas State has also been solid defensively, sporting a .279 fielding percentage with seven double plays already turned by Sherley the shortstop. The team's pitchers have a 3.75 ERA with a team opponent's batting average of .253 and 91 strikeouts already on the year.
 
A Look Ahead
After the midweek against Baylor, the Bobcats will stick to the road for the first Sun Belt Conference series of the season, a three-game set at UL Monroe. After that, Texas State will play a midweek at UTSA before returning home to host Appalachian State in another conference series.