Valley-Opening Series

Bradley Baseball will visit Missouri State for a 4-game series to open the Missouri Valley Conference schedule

Bradley Pre-Series Notes

Bobby Parker, Associate AD for Communications Baseball 4/1/2021 8:59:00 AM

SPRINGFIELD, MO – Coming off a win in its first home game of the season, Bradley Baseball will returns to the road as the Braves (6-9) open their Missouri Valley Conference schedule by visiting Missouri State (8-8) for a four-game league series Thursday, Friday and Saturday at Hammons Field.

SERIES DETAILS
Bradley (6-9, 0-0 MVC) at Missouri State (8-8, 0-0 MVC)
Springfield, MO | Hammons Field
Thursday, April 1 | 6:30 p.m. CT | ESPN+ | Radio | Live Stats | Tickets
Friday, April 2 | 2:00 p.m. CT - DH | ESPN3 Game 1 | ESPN3 Game 2 | Radio | Live Stats | Tickets
Saturday, April 3 | 1:00 p.m. CT | ESPN3 | Radio | Live Stats | Tickets

VALLEY OPENER
• With a new league scheduling format in play for the 2021 season, Bradley will visit Missouri State this weekend in the first Missouri Valley Conference series of the season for both teams.
• For the first time since 2004, The Valley is using a 4-game series format as opposed to the 3-game format, creating a 28-game conference schedule to help alleviate the expected loss of non-conference games due to various conference COVID playing restrictions.
• The weekend series at Missouri State will mark Bradley's sixth consecutive weekend series played away from home as the Braves will open the year by playing 18 of their first 19 games away from Dozer Park.
• The last time the Braves and Bears met, Bradley swept all three games in the 2019 series at Hammons Field for its first-ever Missouri State series road sweep of more than two games.
• Missouri State owns a 68-40 lead in the all-time series, which dates to a non-conference meeting March 23, 1982 in Albuquerque, NM..

SERIES NOTES
Game 109-112 | Missouri State leads 68-40
• This week's series against Missouri State will be games 109-112 in the all-time series between the Braves and Bears.
• The first game of the series was a non-conference meeting March 23, 1982 in Albuquerque, NM, a 7-3 Missouri State win, and the remaining 107 games in the series have been played as Missouri Valley Conference rivals since the Bears joined The Valley in 1991.
• Bradley swept the 3-game series April 26-28, 2019 at Hammons Field for its first-ever road series sweep of more than two games against the Bears (Bradley swept a DH at MSU in 1993).

QUICK PITCHES
• With four more road games at Missouri State, Bradley will open the season by playing 18 of its first 19 games away from home.
• Following the Missouri State series, however, 16 of Bradley's final 24 regular-season games are scheduled for Dozer Park, including the next 12 in a row.
• Missouri will become the sixth state in which the Braves will have played through the first six weeks of its 2021 season.
• Bradley snapped a 6-game losing streak with Tuesday's 7-2 win against SIU Edwardsville.
• Bradley has not played four consecutive games against the same opponent since 2014, when the Braves opened the MVC Baseball Championship with a first-round win against Indiana State after closing the regular-season series against the Sycamores.

ON-BASE STREAKS
• Dan Bolt is not the only streaking Bradley hitter as he leads a quartet of Bradley hitters working on a current double-digit on-base streak.
• Freshman SS TJ Manteufel and CF Ryan Vogel both have reached safely in 13 straight games.
• Senior 3B Brendan Dougherty has reached safely in 11 straight.
• Sophomore 1B Connor O'Brien had hit safely in 10 straight games until suffering an 0-for-4 night Tuesday against SIU Edwardsville.

ROOKIES UP THE MIDDLE
• Luke Shadid had started 151 of Bradley's 161 games from 2017-20, while brother Andy Shadid started 200 games in center field from 2016-19.
• Freshman Ryan Vogel started nine of Bradley's 10 games in CF during the abbreviated 2020 campaign and remains classified as a freshman during this 2021 season.
• Bradley opened the 2021 season by starting true freshmen at SS (TJ Manteufel) and 2B (Jackson Chatterton) with re-freshman Vogel in CF and has used the same trio up the middle in all 15 games to date this season.
• The Braves also started freshman Logan Delgado behind the plate in the second game of the Feb. 26 DH versus Ball State, putting a freshman in all four spots up the middle on the first day of its 2021 season

UP NEXT
• Bradley will start a 12-game home stand next weekend by welcoming Missouri Valley Conference rival Evansville for a 4-game league series April 9-11 at Dozer Park.
• The home stand will continue with a second Valley series April 16-18 against Southern Illinois and will conclude with a 4-game, non-conference series versus Western Illinois April 23-25.

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