2026 Denison Season Review using @PEARatings When the 2026 season began, Denison entered with championship expectations. By the time the final out was recorded, they had built one of the strongest statistical resumes in modern Division III baseball. The Big Red finished 51-3 with the nation's top NET rating (0.996), top Team Strength Rating (9.75), and the No. 1 Resume Quality Index. Along the way, they put together a remarkable 44-game winning streak, one of the longest and most dominant runs in Division III history. Offensively, Denison was the most feared lineup in the country. The Big Red averaged 10.26 runs per game while finishing: • #4 Batting Average (.351)
• #10 On-Base Percentage (.454)
• #6 Slugging Percentage (.548)
• #6 OPS (1.002) What made the offense special wasn't just the production, it was its consistency. They routinely strung together quality at-bats, pressured defenses, and turned small openings into crooked numbers. Opposing pitchers rarely received a break from the top of the order to the bottom. On the mound, the Big Red were equally impressive. • #3 K/9 (9.4)
• #3 K/BB Ratio (3.02)
• 3.13 Team ERA The staff combined swing-and-miss stuff with elite presence in the zone, giving Denison one of the most balanced profiles in the nation. They consistently controlled games early and rarely allowed opponents to sustain rallies. What separated Denison from everyone else, however, was their ability to dominate quality competition. The Big Red posted a perfect 12-0 record in Q2 games, 8-0 in Q3 games, and 11-0 in Q4 games while going 20-3 against Q1 opponents. Their schedule featured multiple nationally ranked teams, including wins over Endicott, East Texas Baptist, Johns Hopkins, Baldwin Wallace, Adrian, DePauw, and many others. Their only three losses all came against highly-rated competition, and each was followed by an immediate response. Time after time, the Big Red demonstrated that they could absorb adversity and quickly regain control. Perhaps the most impressive statistic of all was their TSR of 9.75, nearly an entire point ahead of the next-best team in Division III baseball. That gap illustrates just how far ahead of the field Denison stood throughout the season. The result was a 51-3 season, a 44-game winning streak, a national championship, and arguably the greatest single season in Division III history. #NotJustYet