Crunch Time

The 2026 sprint of a baseball season, at least on the conference level, is entering it's last weekend and the UT Arlington squad is in a good position. Not great mind you, and certainly not at historic levels we've seen over this decades, but given the recent history after COVID cancelled the 2020 season, the prospects look promising.

Much of the last post about baseball still ring true: the pitching is above average, the offense is struggling, there have been close wins and large losses. But I'll cut to the chase. At 7-8 in the Western Athletic Conference, UTA has clinched a spot in the WAC tournament, the field is set, the seeding is not and the Mavericks sit in a tie for fifth with Utah Tech, but are a game out of third as Abilene Christian and Sacramento State are tied at 8-7.

The good news, UTA just won their series against the trailblazers 2-1 and have not been swept by any team in the conference. Bad news, the 9-8, 10-inning loss to Abilene Christian on April 25th cost them that series while a 2-1 loss on day one of the previous series against the Hornets cost UTA that WAC three-game set. To really hammer that point, after winning the opening series against the WAC leaders in Tarleton State, who have clinched a tie for the regular season trophy with three games remaining, UTA dropped a 6-4 decision to second place California Baptist that lost them that series. A slightly more potent offense and UTA has an outside shot at a regular season title at this point in the season. 

In more good news, UTA faces one remaining team in the WAC race, the last place team. Utah Valley, at 2-13 has been swept three times in five WAC series' and has not won a single series to this point. Now the cycnist in me will say this will be the time because their opponent is the Mavs. We Mav fans have seen heartbreak way too often to ever be comfortable. 

In addition to playing a 2-13 team, UTA has a golden opportunity to move up as Tarleton travels to Sacramento and ACU goes to Utah Tech. As the Mavs have the tie-breaker over UT, they'll be rooting for a Trailblazer win. An outstanding TSU performance could help UTA get one game beyond Sac State. The odds aren't high, but UTA could climb as high as third. However, there is a good chance of a climb to fourth.

I mentioned the pitching earlier. At 5.84 ERA, UTA sits fourth in the conference, but just a few points behind third. They are roughly a run away from second, which is a far cry from the past few years. Six Mavericks have a sub-5.00 ERA: senior lefty reliever Merek Sears - 2.79, sophomore righty reliever Hayes Melville - 3.00, junior righty starter Caylon Dygert - 3.48, freshman lefty reliever David An - 4.50, sophomore lefty starter Ty Zahradnik - 4.55 and senior lefty starter/reliever Kyle Winkler - 4.71. 

Now Zahradnik has been out for several weeks to injury and An has only made two appearances for a total of two innings (I don't know why there), but the other four have made a total of 69 appearances, 20 starts and 195.2 innings pitched. Speaking of the bad luck earlier, having Zahradnik is surely worth a win or two at this point.

At the conference level, Sears leads the WAC in ERA among qualifying pitchers while Dygert is fifth.

Batting average, which is generally a good measure of offensive output, but not guaranteed, is not so good. At last in the WAC, UTA's .259 average is .011 points behind Sacramento State and .018 behind Utah Valley and ACU.

Now remember, UVU is in last place, was eliminated from the WAC tourney last weekend officially and has had very low chances a week or two prior. If their batting average is better than UTA, something has to give. That gives comes on the mound. The Wolverines are more than a run in last place in ERA at a 7.60 clip. If UTA goes off, which Mav fans are hoping they do, I don't think it will vault them out of last place offensively. But a strong performance by one team over the other in the ACU/UT or TSU/SSU series' could narrow the gap.

Senior second baseman Xavier Melendez deserves a spotlight as his .353 batting average, 187 at-bats, 66 hits, 36 RBI (tied with senior outfielder Xander McAfee), 91 total bases and .487 slugging percentage lead the team. He's second in home runs, on-base percentage, sacrifice flies and stolen bases, though two of those came immediately after one plate appearance.

Defensively, UTA has a .969 fielding percentage, good for sixth. The gap is closer among the seven WAC teams, almost to the point of making the ranking irrelevant as fifth-place TSU sports a .971 FP, fourth-place ACU sits at .972 and CBU/UT are tied for second at .974. I have faith in the defense as a whole as the 35 double plays turned is good for third in the WAC and the 52 errors are tied for fourth, within two of second place.

Dygert will go for his sixth win tonight as the last regular season game is slated for 7:05 in Orem Utah. Game two comes Friday at 6:05 and the season finale expects first pitch at 1:05 on Saturday. With a range of sixth to third in the standings, there is a lot on the line.