Nebraska's 1-3 Baseball Start - Glass Empty, Glass Full

The Huskers picked up their first win of the season, beating Fresno State 4-1 as freshman newcomer Tom Lemke pitched five shutout innings, giving up five hits and striking out six, while another freshman Kurt Giller threw the final four, giving up a run and five hits.

It was a disappointing series on the surface since most people (that especially includes Husker fans) measure everything in wins and losses. If you're looking at it from the glass empty perspective, there's plenty to complain about, although not much of it from the final game. Nebraska didn't get timely hitting and they couldn't hold a lead. Mike Nesseth comes out of opening weekend with a 18.00 ERA after giving up six runs in three innings worth of pitching. You have to hope this was just a bad weekend for him.

On the positive side, Nebraska was in every game against Fresno State but just couldn't pull out all the wins in the end. That two new pitchers stepped up and threw as well as they did has to be uplifting, as well as the play of DJ Belfonte and Adam Bailey. A lot of new guys saw the field, while Ryan Hughes, Chase Adams, and Khris Tate got their chance to show their stuff on the mound.

For the 100th time, folks, this ain't football. Losses, especially early season losses on the road against a non-conference opponent, don't count for much. The wins could help the RPI, but the main focus here is getting prepared for conference play, especially since we open at Texas (who, btw, lost their #1 ranking this week, so there's more positive for you). You'd rather see losses on the road against a quality opponent than warm-ups against teams that could produce easy wins.

Next up is the Rice Invitational against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Elon, and Rice.