Beginning Friday afternoon, Georgia Southern’s baseball team will take on Fairfield University for their first home series of the season.

So far this season, the Eagles are 1-3, having dropped their game with Georgia Tech and their series opener at the University of Georgia with a hard fought, walk-off loss in the 9th inning of their third game.

For Fairfield, Friday will be their first game and the beginning of their first series of their season.

Fairfield

Last year, the Stags finished a respectable 31-24, including a 17-7 conference record, which gave them the Regular Season MAAC Title.

Although their conference play in the regular season was great, they went 1-2 in the MAAC Conference Tournament, a disappointing end to their successful season.

Out of the seven pitchers who threw at least 25 innings last season, four of them are returning.

Headlining their pitching staff is junior RHP, John Signore. Signore threw 85.2 innings in 14 appearances and 13 starts. He posted a 7-2 record with a 3.26 ERA and a team high 76 strikeouts.

The other three pitchers returning are all sophomores, showing a young, experienced pitching staff.

Of Fairfield’s eight every day position players from last season, five are returning for the 2018 season.

Out of those five, three players hit at least .300 last season. Their best overall hitter, junior infielder, Jack Gethings, hit .355 last season and led the team in on base percentage.

The other players to watch out for are senior outfielder Drew Arciuolo who hit .326, and senior catcher Kevin Radziewicz who hit .315.

As a team, they did not have much power. They hit a total of 26 home runs, compared to a total of 44 from GS.

Although their power was not a threat, their eye was. As a team, they walked a total of 200 times and struck out only 297 times. The Eagles, although had more walks drawn than the Stags, nearly had double the amount of strikeouts as Fairfield, striking out 510 times altogether.

This shows that as long as the Georgia Southern pitching can throw strikes, they can rely on their defense to make the plays necessary to win the game.

Georgia Southern

Georgia Southern needs to win this series in order to get their confidence up. In their 3 losses, 2 were bad and the other was a walk-off. They looked good in their win, however, in their other games, the bullpen and the offense is inconsistent.

Although there is only a small sample size, the GS offense is looking good, with two players standing out in the UGA series.

Sophomore infielder, Mitchell Golden led the way at the plate. The switch hitter put up six hits and three RBIs in 17 at bats, including two of those hits and RBIs in their only win so far this season.

Also, sophomore infielder Steven Curry has five hits in 15 at bats, drawing three walks in the process.

The pitching staff has been shaky, especially in the first game of the UGA series. However, the standout sophomore, Seth Shuman, put up a quality start in the second game of the UGA series, earning the win, making his career record 9-0.

In the game, he pitched six innings and gave up three earned runs, being followed by an outstanding bullpen performance to keep UGA at three runs. Shuman is set to pitch one of the games in the Fairfield series.

This series is a weekend series. The first game begins Friday afternoon, the second game Saturday at 3 p.m., and the third game Sunday at noon.

Each game can be watched on True Blue TV and will also be broadcasted on Georgia Southern Sports Network.