Marshall Baseball Preview
By Anthony Doria, FM88 Sports
Feb. 25, 2026
HUNTINGTON, W. Va. (WMUL-FM) —The Marshall Thundering Herd (2–5) will welcome the Butler Bulldogs (2-6) to Jack Cook Field on Friday for Marshall’s first home weekend series of the year.
This series looks to be very crucial for both teams. Both enter on multi-game losing streaks and are looking to get back on track as they head into the first full month of play.
Marshall enters at 2-5 after a seven-game road trip. Marshall would sweep Evansville in a two-game set to start the year, but would lose straight straight games to Kennesaw State, The Citadel, Navy and Winthrop, respectively.
Butler enters at 2-6 after getting swept in a three-game series against Murray State. Their two wins have come against UT Martin and Illinois.
On the mound making the start for the Herd will be Bryce Blevins. The Senior will be making his third start of the year. He enters with a 1-1 record, 2.08 ERA, and a .92 WHIP. He has struck out 15 batters in 13 innings and has only walked two of them so far. He looks to be a spark to help keep the Bulldogs off the scoreboard for the Herd.
The Bulldogs will send out Brock Buckley to counter. He will also be making his third start of the year, as he enters at 0-1. He currently possesses a 6.17 ERA in 11 ⅔ innings of work, with a 1.63 WHIP. He looks to get his first win of the year and to shut down a Marshall offense that is batting over .280 as a team.
Despite the record, Marshall has shown flashes. The Herd is eighth in the Conference in batting average and has shown great power with 12 home runs, which is good for a tie for second in the conference. However, the pitching has been inconsistent so far to start the year.
Head Coach Greg Beals shared this sentiment with Herdzone after Marshall’s loss to Winthrop on Monday, a game which the Herd led 5-1 before giving up 10 runs in the last four innings, “Early in the game, we came out with great energy, and then it’s like the game got on us a little bit and we didn’t respond very well, We’ve got to reduce the number of free passes. Our number of hit batsmen, walks, and errors is entirely too high. We pride ourselves on our pitching and defense, and it just hasn’t been the case.”
Butler has also had some struggles on the pitching end as well. The Bulldogs have an 8.34 team ERA with teams hitting .357 off of them.
It should be an offensive game with a lot of hits and action.
Fridays first pitch will be at 3 p.m., Saturday will start at 4 p.m., and the matinee on Sunday will be at 1 p.m. You can tune-in to each game on WMUL-FM 88.1 and online on Stream 1 at www.marshall.edu/wmul.