Nebraska Baseball Preview: The Penn State Series

The Nebraska Baseball team travels to State College to end Big Ten play at the Penn State Nittany Lions. Nebraska currently sits tied for first in the Big Ten, but lacks the tiebreaker against Minnesota.

Nebraska needs a Purdue win and to sweep Penn State for the Huskers to win the Big Ten. The good news for the Huskers is that Penn State is the worst team in the league by a wide margin. Penn State has wins over Ohio State, Northwestern, and Indiana in league play.

Nebraska gets to see a familiar face in Sal Biasi, whom the Huskers dealt a loss to last season in Lincoln. Biasi is the Lions ace, working to a 3.34 earned run average, while also averaging better than a strikeout an inning.

Behind Biasi, Derek Burkamper (5-4, 3.32) will face off against Justin Hagenman (1-10, 5.85) on Friday while Jake Meyers (7-1, 3.34) gets to oppose Eric Mock (0-5, 6.43) on Saturday.

The trio of Biasi, Hagenman, and Mock should all be hard hit by the Huskers. Hagenman gave up nine hits last year to Nebraska in a loss to Meyers on getaway day. Mock has decent numbers on the season, but has taken his fair share of tough luck losses.

In the bullpen, Penn State has no one with an ERA below 4.50. Nick Distasio serves as the closer, but he has just a 4.60 ERA while appearing in 20 contests. Outside of Distasio, a number of names will most likely trot out of the bullpen this weekend.

The offense for Penn State is last in the league with just a .236 batting average. No one bats over .280, as Willie Burger leads the qualified batters with a .276 average. No one has more than 4 home runs. Penn State does have 433 strikeouts as a team, leading the Big Ten.

A quick recap of above could be as follows. Penn State offense is bad. Penn State pitching is bad. Penn State is not a good team. Nebraska should sweep them to mercifully end there season.