Big Ten Baseball Weekly Review - 2014 Week Eight

Through games of April 7

Illinois

3-0

Illinois 13, Northwestern 0

Illinois 6, Northwestern 2 (10 innings)

Illinois 1, Northwestern 0

Illinois is sitting pretty, second place at 5-1. Granted, they've played Northwestern and Purdue, the two worst teams in the conference.

Illini starting pitchers had a great weekend:

1- Drasen Johnson, 7 innings pitched, 4 hits, 10 strikeouts

2 - Ryan Castellanos, 7 innings, 6 hits, 2 earned runs

3 - John Kravetz, 8 innings, 4 hits, 7 strikeouts

When you're the lousiest guy on the weekend and you've only given up two runs, you're doing pretty well.

Indiana

3-0

Indiana 6, Iowa 3

Indiana 14, Iowa 3

Indiana 5, Iowa 3

Weather delayed this series' completion until Monday.

1 - Four home runs for Indiana, two from Sam Travis. Joey DeNato won his 30th career game, tying a school record.

2 - 17 hits for Hoosiers, five runs in the first inning. Dustin DeMuth 3-for-4. Four more Hoosier home runs.

3 - Five runs in the 8th inning.

Hoosiers have top two hitters in the conference, DeMuth (.385) and Sam Travis (.383).

The Hoosier are third in team batting (.278), first in pitching (2.64 ERA) and fifth in fielding (.970).

Iowa

1-3

Iowa 6, Bradley 2

Indiana 6, Iowa 3

Indiana 14, Iowa 3

Indiana 5, Iowa 3

Iowa tried to rally in the series finale scoring two runs in the bottom of the 9th, but it just weren't happening.

Sasha Kuebel got destroyed in the 14-3 loss, going only .1 innings, giving up 7 hits, and 5 earned runs.

I'd say that what Indiana did to Iowa they will probably do to just about everyone.

Michigan

2-2

Michigan 6, Central Michigan 3

Minnesota 9, Michigan 6 (11 innings)

Michigan 8, Minnesota 1

Minnesota 3, Michigan 1

1 - Down 5-0, Wolverines forced extra innings with 3 runs in the 8th, but the Gophers got 3 runs in the 11th.

2 - Wolverine hurler Evan Hill went 6.2 innings, giving up 5 hits, while Michigan pounded out 11 hits and 8 runs.

3 - Trent Szkutnik went 6 innings, giving up 7 hits, 3 runs, but Minnesota's Ben Meyer went 7.1 innings, giving up 6 hits, and 1 run.

Pretty close series, actually.

Michigan State

5-0

Michigan State 5, Eastern Michigan 3

Michigan State 5, Oakland 3

Michigan State 4, Siena 0

Michigan State 6, Siena 1

Michigan State 5, Siena 1

Sparty went undefeated, but when you're playing teams like these you should be going undefeated. I'm not going to look at Michigan State's week more than that.

Minnesota

2-1

Minnesota 9, Michigan 6 (11 innings)

Michigan 8, Minnesota 1

Minnesota 3, Michigan 1

If you had asked me ahead of time, I would have thought that Minnesota would take this series even though it was a road series for them. There's just toughness about John Anderson's teams (although remember that Minnesota lost their series to Sparty at home the week before).

Minnesota just doesn't have the offense - right now they're next to last in team batting at .239 (Purdue is at .223).

Nebraska

4-1

Arkansas 4, Nebraska 3

Nebraska 6, Arkansas 4

Nebraska 3, Ohio State 2

Nebraska 4, Ohio State 3

Nebraska 2, Ohio State 1

Holy crap, Nebraska!

If you'd have asked me to guess which team would sweep the other, I would have chosen Ohio State. To this point, the Huskers have simply been too inconsistent.

This weekend, though, they proved their potential. All three Husker starting pitchers threw complete games.

1 - Christian DeLeon , 9 IP, 8 hits, 2 earned runs

2- Chase Sinclair, 9 IP, 7 hits, 3 unearned runs caused by Husker errors.

3- Aaron Bummer, 9 IP, 5 hits, 1 unearned run.

If that wasn't enough, all three games were decided in the late innings, with the final two games being won by Nebraska on two-out hitting.

Game one, Nebraska scored all three runs in the bottom of the 8th. Game two, one run in the bottom of the 8th, three more in the bottom of the 9th. Game three, a run in the bottom of the 9th.

But wait there's more! In game two, head coach Darin Erstad replaced two infielders because of those three errors. At least one was replaced in the middle of an inning. The team apparently got the message.

This weekend could be huge for the Nebraska program. If they can play like this the rest of the season, they'll go places - like a NCAA regional, something they did not accomplish last season.

Northwestern

0-3

Illinois 13, Northwestern 0

Illinois 6, Northwestern 2 (10 innings)

Illinois 1, Northwestern 0

Two runs in three games. Ouch!

Ohio State

2-3

Ohio State 11, Ohio 6

Ohio State 7, Toledo 2

Nebraska 3, Ohio State 2

Nebraska 4, Ohio State 3

Nebraska 2, Ohio State 1

Ohio State came into Lincoln and left after losing all three games in the most horrendous fashion possible.

The Buckeye starters did well enough, even with weekend starter Ryan Riga out, but a lacking of pitching depth is really hurting. They are not as bad as their record indicates, but they have played Indiana, Nebraska and Michigan State already in consecutive weeks.

The result? Ohio State has been swept by Indiana and Nebraska and now they're kind of wondering where they're at.

Penn State

3-1

Penn State 15, Youngstown State 2

Penn State 2, Purdue 1

Penn State 6, Purdue 5

Purdue 4, Penn State 0

Penn State is in a good position, but at this point, they've played Northwestern and Purdue, which means, nothing much really.

Purdue

1-3

Illinois-Chicago 18, Purdue 5

Penn State 2, Purdue 1

Penn State 6, Purdue 5

Purdue 4, Penn State 0

At least Purdue won a game. Illinois -Chicago has a RPI of 230. I don't know what the hell happened there.