As the plebeian 5-12 seeds continue their adorable, little tournament to start the week, some Husker news has popped up with the preparation for the Championship Bracket Big Ten Tournament underway in Lincoln.
The boys took the extra day Sunday and their usual Monday off to recover from the wear and tear of their stretch run, and reset all the pitching preparation for the tournament. They practiced Tuesday and Wednesday, working on situational baseball like pickles, pick-offs, bunt coverages and other
things that kinda go by the wayside during the season as the focus on days off is more recovery and hitting.
They will get one more practice in Thursday before bussing to Omaha Thursday evening. This new double tournament format adopted by the Big Ten really could not have worked out better for the Huskers.
Carson Jasa Tabbed Starter
In a press conference after practice on Wednesday, Will Bolt was asked if he had picked a starter for their opening game on Friday at 5pm. Rather than mix up the order to pitch his ace against a potentially higher rated team, he stated they would be going with recently named 1st Team All Big Ten Carson Jasa. This is due to the fact that he has been their Friday starter over recent weeks and wanting to keep his preparation the same and give him the usual amount of rest.
Honestly, Bolt has pressed all the right buttons in picking pitchers over the past two tournaments, so it’s hard to second guess him and Childress on any of these decisions. You cant chance a loss to a lower RPI team and leave Omaha without pitching your ace. Plus if he is able to handle someone with 7+ innings, against a team’s third pitcher, it would be a lot easier to figure out your bullpen being all hands on deck for just 2 games.
How the Tournament is Shaping up for NU
Halfway through Day 2 and we have a little better idea of who could be meeting Nebraska on Friday. Rutgers has been eliminated from the Husker’s side of the bracket. Washington will be taking on Michigan tonight still. The winner of that game will advance to take on 3 seed Oregon. The loser Wednesday night has a meeting with Ohio State on Thursday afternoon for the right to take on Nebraska.
Pitching-wise, Ohio State used Pierce Herrenbruck who went a complete game Wednesday. He was the pitcher that shut down Nebraska on Wednesday. They went with lesser used arms on Tuesday, so are shaping up well for Thursday. They left Friday night starter Gavin Kunzniewski on Friday last week, even with the shifted schedule. Hard to imagine they would leave him on the shelf for NU on Friday though, needing to win Thursday afternoon.
Washington sat their Sunday starter in their final series against UCLA and sent him to the mound in Omaha for their win over Ohio State. They used a couple of their bigger bullpen arms, including their closer, but no one for more than an inning. Will update this post with who they chose to go tonight.
Michigan actually sent out their do everything guy in Cade Montgomery out to take care of Rutgers on opening night. He has been their closer pretty much since the Nebraska series, picking up 6 saves to go along with his 7 starts. He pitched a complete game, so Michigan is sitting very well with all their starters available.
RPI Watch
Tuesday was a good day for the dormant Huskers. They moved up from 10 to 9 in the RPI. That’s because the first 3 games of the Big Ten Tournament had wins by teams on the Huskers schedule. Ohio State dropped the nightcap to Washington, so that didn’t do any favors, as Washington has a lower RPI and wasn’t on NU’s schedule.
Iowa and Michigan State are playing the prime time game Wednesday. Iowa is sitting with an RPI of 55. Michigan State is at 105. A Michigan State win would surely move them to 100 or less, which means they would go from a Quad 4 to Quad 3 team. Iowa winning may be able to bump them closer to 50, which would bump them from Quad 3 to Quad 2 for Nebraska.
Stanford also picked up a win Tuesday, before falling Wednesday to Miami. All this does nothing but help the Huskers.
The newer metric that is also being adopted by outlets and the committee is the Diamond Sports Ranking or DSR. It is a metric that doesn’t penalize a team for beating a lower ranked team in its algorithm as harsh as RPI. Nebraska was sitting at 33 after the Ohio State series, but has built its way up to 19 currently. Just another thing to keep track of, but by all accounts RPI is still the king.
