Air Force baseball opens with loaded offense, questions on pitching staff
Air Force figures to score plenty of runs in 2024.
The touted lineup includes Sam Kulasingam (whose .426 batting average led the Mountain West by 45 points last season), Jay Thomason (who hit 21 home runs last year, no one else in the conference hit 20) and veterans like Chase Spencer, Jake Greiving and Aerik Joe.
“If you look on paper at what we have returning, you look offensively and you think, ‘Holy cow, these guys have Murderer’s Row coming back.’ Which is great,” coach Mike Kazlausky said.
It’s on the pitching side, once again, where the Falcons find their question marks.
Left-hander Seungmin Shim opens as the Friday starter, followed in the rotation by lefty Jack Bello (who missed last year after suffering an ACL injury after falling on ice while going to church) and RHP Ben Weber.
Dylan Rogers will join the fold at some point when healthy.
For the second consecutive year, the team must replace the starter that won the first game in the Mountain West Tournament and set them on a course for the championship game. Paul Skenes won that game in 2022 before transferring to LSU and ultimately becoming the No. 1 overall pick in the MLB Draft. Sawyer Hawks did it last year and has since transferred to Vanderbilt.
The Falcons won the conference title last year and finished as a runner-up. They’ll start this year on Friday as they open a three-game series at Mississippi State.
Kazlausky hopes the development of the pitching staff, led by new pitching coach Kyle Winkler, will allow the Falcons to keep opponents in check while the offense churns out runs.
“We want a dog pile,” Kazlausky said. “We want to get back on the road to Omaha.”
Air Force’s Jay Thomason celebrates after hitting a home run March 28 against Kansas State.
