Jonesboro, Ark. • Tomlinson Stadium (1,000)
After a pair of emotional, one-run victories in non-conference play this week, the Trojans will take to the road this weekend in Sun Belt Conference play to face Arkansas State. Jonesboro has not been a particularly pleasant place for Troy University teams to visit over the last two years. The Troy football team is winless in two trips and the men's basketball team suffered its worse loss of the season there in February.
For the Troy baseball team to be successful on this trip, it will take strong outings from the Trojans' starting pitchers, who have struggled of late. Over the last nine games, even through the Trojans are 8-1, Troy's starting pitchers have combined to work just 35.2 innings with a 9.84 ERA. Over that same stretch, the Troy bullpen has worked 49.1 innings with a 2.00 ERA. If you throw out Pete Van Horn's outing against Western Kentucky (0.0 IP, 4 ER), that bull pen ERA drops to 1.27.
Still, the strength of this Troy team lies in its hitting. Despite the sudden slump junior Tom King has fallen into (no hits in his last 10 at bats), the Trojans are continuing to get timely hits and score the runs they need.
The leader for the Trojans at the plate right now is senior third baseman Jared Keel. After hitting just .219 in his first 12 games of the year, Keel has caught fire, raising his season batting average to .348. He is currently riding a career-best 11-game hit streak and, during that stretch is hitting .477 with 10 doubles. This week he has already hit a game-winning homer (UAB) and had three hits against Auburn that included a GW-RBI double.
Troy is also ready to welcome junior first baseman Clint Robinson back into the regular lineup. After missing most of the last month with a bad hamstring, Robinson started at DH on Wednesday and had two hits, including a double. Despite having played in just 28 games, and only 19 as a starter, Robinson has eight multiple RBI and 11 multiple-hit games this season.
But it will all come back to starting pitching this weekend. Junior right-hander Clegg Snipes (3-0, 5.02) will get the call on Friday and junior left-hander Joe Hallahan (3-2, 4.64) will start on Saturday. Sunday's starter will be determined by the results of the first two games of the series, with junior left-hander Mike Felix (6-2, 3.06) being a possibility if he is not needed to close either of the first two games.
