Mizzou Baseball Game Day: Gonzaga Bulldogs

■ STOP THE PRESSES!!!! The game has now been re-re-scheduled to be played and/or flooded out at 6PM! Again!

MUTigerBaseball: RT @ShawnDizzle77: And @MUTigerBaseball has now been moved back to the originally scheduled 6 p.m. start time. Sorry for the runaround! - Tuesday, March 08, 2011

■ Today's game has been moved from 6PM to 5PM. Like that'll make a difference.

■ Once again the weather outside is frightful. It's raining in CoMo at mid-day, and the forecasters say the chance of rain will just keep increasing through the afternoon and evening.

■ Baseball wins four straight (theslipperstillfits.com)

After starting the season 0-5 (losses to Or. St (2), Fresno St., Texas A&M (2)) the Gonzaga baseball team turned things around and have won four straight with this weekend's sweep of Pacific, making them 4-5. Since their most recent loss, they've outscored opponents 23-12. Royce Bolinger is hitting a stunning .391 with five RBIs, while Eric Lane and Billy Moon are also above the .300 mark.

Even though the plate performances have been solid, what's really saved the Bulldogs as of late has been the pitching. The collective ERA is 3.07, with starters Ryan Carpenter (1-0, 3.38, 26k in 18.2 ip) and Tyler Olson (1-1, .075, 12k in 12 ip) going deep into games. Moon has been fantastic out of the pen with a perfect 0.00 ERA and surrendering just two hits in 5.2 innings of work; he's also started every game in the field, so look for him to be a versatile contributor as the season wears on.

■ New bats should mean fewer homers in college baseball (spokesman.com)

It is something Gonzaga is looking forward to as well, though Machtolf’s Gonzaga team will play a schedule rated third toughest by Baseball America magazine. It also doesn’t feature a home game until UC Irvine comes to Spokane the last week of March.

It will all be new to many of the Zags, a lot of whom were not part of last year’s 20-36 team.

“To be honest with you, we’ve got a lot of new faces,” Machtolf said. “I think we have the talent, but there is going to be an adjustment period to Division I pitching.”

The newcomer that excites Machtolf the most is freshman Marco Gonzales, from Fort Collins, Colo. The 6-foot-1 lefty, a three-time all-state selection, is in the starting rotation and will play some first base for the Zags.