Eastern baseball junior pitcher Matt Borens has pitched the most innings of any starter this year for the Panthers, but he has not been the sharpest as of late.

Heading into the Panthers’ first home series against an Ohio Valley Conference opponent, Eastern coach Jim Schmitz said Borens has not looked like a Friday night guy.

Despite picking up his first win of the year against IPFW, pitching seven innings for the fourth straight time, Borens allowed five runs and 11 hits to the Mastodons.

But Borens’ has been a workhorse for the Panthers’ pitching staff, throwing 41 innings in six starts and with some injuries to the bullpen he will now start Saturday in the middle game of Eastern’s series against Jacksonville State, Eastern pitching coach Jason Anderson said.

“Matt consistently goes deep into games and with the injuries to the bullpen it kind of splits the days, so the bullpen could pitch more if needed Friday and Sunday and hopefully Matt takes care of things Saturday,” Anderson said.

Eastern has won three of its last four games, which have come at home, improving its record to 7-17.

The Panthers have not played a conference game since March 15, when they had a doubleheader against Austin Peay.

Eastern will host the Gamecocks, starting Friday, when sophomore Jake Johansmeier will make the start for the Panthers.

The second-year pitcher has not had the best of luck in his last two starts, throwing a combined 7.1 innings, allowing 15 runs (10 earned) against Austin Peay and IPFW, respectively.

Borens and Johansmeier have been the only two starters for Eastern that have pitched every weekend this season.

In the last month, projected starter Troy Barton has been moved to the bullpen, where he has become the Panthers’ closer.

Christian Slazinik started four games before resting a fatigued left arm and has been coming in relief in his last two appearances.

That has left Anderson with the option of Joe Greenfield, who he said would most likely make the start in the series finale against Jacksonville State, although it is not a certainty.

“He is kind of a hybrid pitcher right now, a starter/long-man reliever and hopefully we don’t need him out of the bullpen and he’ll be ready to go Sunday,” Anderson said.

Greenfield, who began the season as the team’s closer, started his first game of the year Sunday against IPFW.

He struggled early with a couple of wild pitches, which were compounded by a couple of more errors in the field that helped IPFW get out ahead 7-1 after the top of third inning.

Greenfield did end his outing with three shutout innings, though.

Johansmeier, Borens and most likely Greenfield will face Jacksonville State, which is 14-10 and 6-3 in the OVC.

The Gamecocks lost their midweek game against Samford 7-6 on Tuesday, but that came after they won two of three games against Austin Peay.

Through their first 24 games of the season, the Gamecocks have walked 105 times, while Eastern pitchers have allowed 116.

In Jacksonville State’s last four games, they have walked 20 times. During that same four-game period Eastern has allowed the same amount of walks.

Anderson said the Panthers’ pitching staff has to play to its strengths.

“As a team we have to improve on almost every level of our game, but as far as the pitchers they have to eliminate the walks, make quality pitches and throw strikes,” he said.

The three-game series begins at 3 p.m. Friday in Coaches Stadium, followed by 3 p.m. starts Saturday and Sunday.

Aldo Soto can be reached at 581-2812 or asoto2@eiu.edu.