The Pittsburgh Panthers baseball team will make the trip down to Morgantown on Tuesday to take on the No. 22 West Virginia Mountaineers.
WVU is 22-13 on the season (11-4 in Big 12 play), coming off a series sweep over Big 12 opponent and former No. 17 UCF over the weekend.
Sam White leads the Mountaineers in batting average among eligible players (must have two plate appearances per game and played in 75% of games), with a .326 average. Not far behind with a .324 average and a team-leading 10 home runs is Reed Chumley, who hit a walk-off dinger in the bottom of the 11th Sunday to give West Virginia the win and sweep over the Knights.
Pitt is 14-18 overall and 4-14 in ACC play. They are coming off a series loss to Duke, where they took one game of the three-game series.
The Panthers are led offensively by senior outfielder Dom Popa, junior infielder Tyler Cantwell and junior catcher Jayden Melendez. Popa is leading the team with a .328 batting average but is yet to hit a home run this season, while Cantwell ranks second in batting average, slashing .306, with seven home runs. Melendez leads the team in home runs with 10 but is hitting a mere .239.
The southpaw Tyler Switalski is expected to get the start for West Virginia. This season he has a 1-1 record, an 8.67 ERA across 27 innings pitched, with 24 strikeouts and 20 walks. Switalski pitched 0.2 innings in WVU’s win Sunday, allowing four earned runs on five hits with one strikeout.
Senior right-handed pitcher Matthew Fernandez will be on the bump for Pitt. This season he has a record of 2-2, a 4.10 ERA in 26.1 innings pitched, with 22 strikeouts and 10 walks.
The first pitch is set for 6:30 p.m. EST at Kendrick Family Ballpark, with the game available to be streamed on ESPN+. This will be the first of two games the two teams will play, with the second being an away game for the Mountaineers at PNC Park, home of the Pittsburgh Pirates on April 30th.
Photo by Aaron Parker, Blue Gold Sports
