Big Ten Baseball Tournament Recap: Day 5

Semifinal Saturday is upon us! The two lower seeds are more well rounded than the lower seeds that own the 1 game advantage over them. Nebraska has almost every pitcher in its arsenal that was tops in the league ready to go against the potent Indiana lineup. Michigan got a near complete game from Will Rodgers last night, so their bullpen is nearly as rested as the upstart Nittany Lions. We could have anywhere from 2 to 4 games today. Let’s see what happened!

Also, no Todd today, he had something more important like a brand spanking new grandchild to go visit, so it’s just me doing the Husker recaps as well as the daily recap. So they may be slightly shorter today.

Game 11 — The Will Walsh Game 2.0

#3 Indiana 2

#2 Nebraska 4

But honestly I can just tell you 2 names and that will give you a pretty good understanding of what happened.

Josh Caron. Indiana took a 1-0 lead in the first inning, and Husker hitters were swinging and missing at a lot of fastballs from Indiana’s ace on super short rest that were only 88-89, so you felt the second time through some fireworks might happen. We didn’t get a lot of them, but we got one HUGE one. Riley Silva took plunk number 1 of 2 on the day to lead off the 3rd inning, Overbeek reached with a single. And then Caron smashed a 433 foot bomb that came off the bat at 112 mph and landed over the Indiana bullpen, almost at the top of the bleachers. Nebraska was up 3-1.

Will Walsh. Indiana got a run back on a triple and sac fly in the bottom of the 3rd, and Nebraska had Drew Christo start throwing in the bullpen towards the end of the 3rd, and he stayed there every inning for the rest of the game. Walsh didn't allow a hit again until 1 out in the 8th inning. He’d get through unscathed though, on pitch number 100 exactly.

Speaking of the 8th inning, one Josh Caron decided that would be a good time for some insurance, destroying a baseball for the second time on the day. It was an almost exact copy of his first shot, only it landed over the bleachers this time. 4-2 Big Red, all 4 RBIs to the man who was mysteriously left off any and all All-Big Ten teams.

Walsh came out for the 9th to a huge ovation from the thousands of Husker fans in attendance. Walsh rewarded them with 2 strikeouts, the first on an 86 mph fastball, showing you just how much he was pitching on fumes at the end, and a game ending strikeout on the slider he’d been living on all day.

If you are keeping track, that is 2 complete games for Will Walsh in Big Ten elimination games. Nebraska forced a deciding game for the chance to go to the championship later at 5pm.

Game 12 — The Little Engine that Could Chugs on!

#8 Penn State 7

#5 Michigan 6

It took a while for the scoring to get started. In the 4th inning, Penn State poked a 1 out single into center, then worked an 8 pitch walk with a Gabe Swansen-like 3 foul balls. It looked like Penn State would take a 1 run lead with a single to right from DH Matt Maloney that was rolling at a medium pace to the outfielder, but he took his eyes off it, and it rolled right between his legs. Both runners scored and Maloney ended up standing on third base. A sac fly brought him in and instead of a 1-0 game, the Nittany Lions had a 3-0 lead.

Michigan turned to their 1st Team All-B1G reliever, Jacob Denner and he steadied things. In fact, he went the rest of the way for the Wolverines.

It was quite the 6th inning for Steven Hrustich. The First Team All-Big Ten right fielder may a big inning ending sliding catch for the second day in a row. Then he led off the bottom of the inning with a double that missed being a home run by maaaybe 6 inches. He scored on back to back productive ground outs to put Michigan on the board. Hrustich had to switch from his usual #15 jersey to a #29 yesterday and today, and its safe to say he may finish out the season that way.

Penn States pitching started to falter, despite having the most rest of the teams on this side of the bracket, they have the least amount of shall we say, “effective” pitchers. The inning continued and they hit a Michigan batter and walked another, and a double from light hitting SS Kyle Dernedde tied the game up at 3-3.

Michigan’s other First Team All-Conference member, Mitch Voit, led of the 7th with a single. The next man up, Hrustich worked a 2-0 count, then mashed a fastball down the left field line for an RBI triple. Hrustich ran in on a wild pitch and gave the Wolverines a 5-3 lead.

Penn State had its pitcher ejected walking off the field after that inning. Word on the street was the umpire thought he heard “Fuck You!” when everyone tried to tell him the pitcher said “Fuck yeah!” after striking the final batter of the inning.

Leadoff man Joe Jaconski led off the 8th inning for the Nittany Lions. He sent a bomb out to the right field bullpen to cut the lead to 1. 4 singles brought another run in for Penn State. They tried sending the runner home from second base, but Hrustich’s throw from right field beat him home. By three steps. The runner tried to jump over the Michigan catcher, but it didn’t work. It spectacularly did not work.

We stayed tied until the 10th, Penn State led off with its 2 best players. Catcher JT Marr hit a single into center field on the first pitch he saw. Then power hitter Adam Cecere worked a full count, fouled off a ball and took the 7th pitch of the at-bat deep and gone and gave the Nittany Lions a 7-5 lead.

Mitch Voit was at a full count with 2 outs in the bottom of the 10th, and took the pitch deep and gone to cut the lead to 7-6, and bring up Hrustich. He gave the ball a ride to the power alley, but not far enough to extend the game. The 8 seed makes it into the tournament championship, awaiting the winner of the Nebraska/Indiana rematch.

Game 13 — The Rematch

#3 Indiana 4

#2 Nebraska 10

Not going to lie, I’m spent from today and this week. Check out the main recap for the details. You can find that by CLICKING HERE!!!

I’ll leave you with my two favorite tweets of the day…

I LOVE BAT FLIPS!!!!!!!!!

And Kyle Perry woke up PISSED OFF!!!!!!!

;OH and don’t forget, there is a time change for possible weather late in the afternoon. Get here early!!