We’re Rhode Island bound
The title of “team who has to travel the farthest” for the Baton Rouge Regional goes to the Rhode Island Rams, the champions of the Atlantic 10. If you’re looking for a road trip, Kingston is 23 hours and 10 minutes away and at the time of this writing, the weather up there it is a cool 68 degrees and the low this week is 50. The Rams may as well be traveling to the opposite end of the universe on their journey south to Red Stick but their goal is the same as LSU, DBU, and Little Rock: win three games and advance to the Supers.
Rhode Island Rams
2025 Record: 38-20 (22-8)
RPI: 68
SOS Ranking: 172
Quadrant Results: Q1 (1-4), Q2 (2-2), Q3 (10-7), Q4 (25-7)
Team ERA: 6.20
Team Batting Average: .309
Team Fielding: .973
At 38-20, the Rams are enjoying its most successful season in program history. It’s the most wins Rhode Island’s had since 2009 (YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE HAPPENED IN 2009????) and they won both the Atlantic 10 tournament and regular season for the first time since 2016. Rhode Island won the league pretty comfortably this season, finishing ahead of second place George Mason by 2.5 games. The Rams went a perfect 3-0 in the A-10 Tournament to secure the league’s lone bid for the NCAA Tournament.
The Rams are still relatively new to this whole “NCAA Tournament” thing. This will be the program’s third appearance in the Tournament (2005 and 2016) and the Rams are a combined 1-4 in their first two appearances.
Rhode Island’s got a fairly respectable RPI of 68. They played four games against Oregon the second weekend of the season and actually won the first game of the series 12-11. The Ducks, however, rebounded in a big way and won the final three games by a combined score of 35-13. To their credit they could’ve gotten out of Eugene with a 2-2 series split as they lost game two of the set 1-0 in 11 innings.
The Rams played two other games against teams with RPIs inside the top-100 and split them: Rhode Island beat Boston College 11-9 in 10 innings, but got run-ruled by UConn 16-6. The Rams are pretty solid away from home, too, going 20-14 on the road and 3-0 on a neutral field.
As the old saying goes, “styles make fights” and Rhode Island’s style of play is pretty comparable to DBU, whom they’ll play Friday evening at The Box. They’re pretty good offensively, but they lack reliable pitching.
As a team, Rhode Island hits .309 and has 85 home runs. For context, LSU’s team batting average is .301 and they have 90 homers, while Dallas Baptist bats .304 with 97 home runs. They’re not afraid to be aggressive on the base path either, with 163 attempted steals (about three per game) and 125 successfully stolen.
Anthony DePino is the biggest bat in Rhode Island’s lineup with an impressive .359 average, 20 homers, and 19 doubles. He’s slugging .733, has an on base percentage of .510 and has 25 more bases than the next closest Ram. Reece Moroney leads Rhode Island with a .363 average, Eric Genther is hitting .351, and Jack Hopko isn’t too far behind with a .345 average and leads the team with 80 RBI. Nic Notarangelo is also having a good season at the plate with a .388 average, but he’s only played in 35 of a possible 58 games. He made the A-10 Tournament team so he ought to be good to go for the Baton Rouge Regional.
Then there’s the Rhode Island pitching. Little Rock has the region’s distinction of “worst staff ERA” at 6.33, but Rhode Island’s not much better with an ERA of 6.20. Lefty Trystan Levesque has a perfectly respectable 8-1 record with a 3.25 ERA in 15 starts, but after that the drop off is pretty stark. No. 2 starter Jeremy Urena has a 5.10 ERA in 14 starts, and Jake Cullen has a 5.57 ERA in 10 starts and 16 total appearances. If LSU can’t hit this type of pitching, we should be concerned.
LSU and Rhode Island have never played each other in baseball, and it’s more likely than not their paths won’t cross this weekend. If they do it’ll either be because the Rams surprised DBU in the 2-3 game Friday evening or, God forbid, LSU fell flat on its face against Little Rock and ends up playing Rhode Island in the loser’s bracket game.