[Husker] Back to baseball

[jschlechte at mobil1.net]

As one of the few, the proud, the willing to discuss
baseball, I liked Jeff’s analysis, but last night’s game
put the first nail in the coffin as far as the regular
season Big 12 title.  NU needed to do more than win the
series against OU and they have to win the next two games to
do that.  Still left on the schedule are MU (2nd in the Big
12 standings), @ TT (6th but hits the ball well – 2nd in
league) and KSU (8th).  So NU has 11 Big 12 games left and
is currently 10-6.  They really need to sweep TT and KSU and
go 2-1 vs MU along with winning the next two games to finish
20-7 to win the title - and even then they need some help.

Even though Texas has lost 2 in a row, I don’t see them
losing more than 2 to MU, KU and TAMU which would mean Texas
would have a record of 18-8, which would give NU a little
space for losing another game.  But then there’s league
leading Baylor who has TT, TAMU and MU left.  If they end up
with the same record as NU, Nebraska gets the tie-break with
the 2-1 series win, but they are 2 games ahead of NU in the
standings at 13-5.

Of course MU is the wild card in all of this, but their
competition has been pitiful so who knows how they will far
against Texas, Baylor and NU.  NU could easily place 3rd
behind BU and UT even if they win each series.

A regional host seems probable if they don’t tank – even
if they finish 3rd and go at least 2-2 in the Big 12
tourney.  A super regional host or top 8 seed means they
need to crank it up and finish 1st or 2nd in both regular
season and tourney.  But I don’t think that will happen as
the consistency of the bats just isn’t there.  Where the
lineup used to be able to usually figure out a pitcher after
once through the order and either start hitting them or at
least making them throw more pitches, this team doesn’t
seem capable of that.  Or there aren’t enough of them that
can do that.

So I’m hopeful for a regional host and getting to a super
regional, but have serious doubts about NU being able to do
more.  It may not even be the bats or the pitching, it could
be the little things like last night - poor baserunning and
an error was the difference between 2-2 and 5-1.

It’s going to be an interesting month of May.

Jay