![\"Jared](\"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/baseball-feb22.jpg\")
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Baseball fans love statistics, so here at the opening of a new Baylor baseball<\/a> season, let\u2019s start with some trivia: Who is Baylor\u2019s all-time batting average leader?<\/p>\n Long-time Baylor fans might have guessed MLB standouts<\/a> like David Murphy, Jason Jennings or Max Muncy — but the answer isn’t any of those Baylor greats from the past. It’s third-year sophomore\u00a0Jared McKenzie<\/a>, who in his first two seasons in the green and gold has hit an incredible .389 — starting with a .406 average in his COVID-shortened freshman season of 2020, and followed by a .383 mark that finished second in the Big 12 last season.<\/p>\n Such success has the Bears’ starting center fielder on the watch list for the Golden Spikes Award<\/a> (baseball’s Heisman), named a\u00a0consensus preseason all-American<\/a>, unanimously selected to the preseason All-Big 12 team<\/a>, and ranked among the top-25 college prospects for this spring’s MLB draft<\/a>.<\/p>\n McKenzie is one of seven returning starters for the Bears, who are projected to make another NCAA tournament appearance this spring<\/a>.\u00a0Besides McKenzie, Baylor’s roster includes\u00a0last year\u2019s top starting pitcher, fifth-year senior Tyler Thomas, plus two 2021 All-Big 12 selections in second baseman Tre Richardson and shortstop Jacob Pineda.<\/p>\n Fans will have plenty of chances<\/a> to see McKenzie and the Bears in action at Baylor Ballpark and beyond this season. The Bears’ first two weekends are at home against Maryland and Duke, followed by a trip to Houston’s Minute Maid Park, where Baylor will face three top-25 opponents in UCLA, Tennessee and LSU before beginning Big 12 play at home against TCU on March 18. Season and individual game tickets are now available!<\/a><\/p>\n Sic \u2019em, Baylor Baseball!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Baseball fans love statistics, so here at the opening of a new Baylor baseball season, let\u2019s start with some trivia: Who is Baylor\u2019s all-time batting average leader? Long-time Baylor fans might have guessed MLB standouts like David Murphy, Jason Jennings or Max Muncy — but the answer isn’t any of those Baylor greats from the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-athletics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23357\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}