Around the Horn: Husker baseball caps four-game road stint at Rutgers

Will Bolt believes Nebraska baseball hasn’t reached its ceiling.

“This team is yet to peak,” Bolt said. “I believe that wholeheartedly. You’re starting to see us play a little bit better defense. The hitting has been a little come and go. The pitching has been pretty consistent. I think if we can continue to just get better, that’s going to be the goal for this team and obviously this weekend is huge.”

The Huskers have lost three of the last five and now turn their attention back to conference play and a roughly 1,280-mile trip Piscataway, New Jersey. Rutgers is next on the docket and the Scarlet Knights reached 20 wins on Tuesday with a midweek victory over Seton Hall. That’s a full seven days faster than head coach Steve Owens’ 2023 squad.

Yet, Rutgers is 1-5 in conference play after Purdue swept the Scarlet Knights last week.

Here’s more on the Huskers, an opponent with a host of numbers that don’t match its mark in the Big Ten and much more.

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Projecting Nebraska’s pitching matchups

Friday, 5:00 p.m., RHP Brett Sears (Stats: 6-0, 1.14 ERA, 55.1 IP, 57 K) vs. LHP Justin Sinibaldi (Stats: 4-0, 2.68 ERA, 53.2 IP, 47 K)

Saturday, 3:00 p.m., RHP Mason McConnaughey (Stats: 3-2, 2.86 ERA, 28.1 IP, 36 K) Vs. RHP Jake Marshall (Stats: 1-1, 4.97 ERA, 29.0 IP, 32 K)

Sunday, 11:00 a.m., RHP Drew Christo (Stats: 1-2, 4.84 ERA, 35.1 IP, 27 K) Vs. RHP Christian Coppola (4-3, 6.38 ERA, 36.2 IP, 39 K)

What to watch for the Huskers

Checking in on Nebraska’s aggression factor

After Sunday’s 9-3 loss to Ohio State, Bolt made it clear he wasn’t pleased with his team’s mentality at the dish. He said his squad wasn’t the aggressor. Even in a 13-11 defeat by Kansas on Tuesday, Bolt felt his team took a step in the right direction.

Still, there’s plenty of room to grow.

“We’ve been a little passive at times for my liking,” Bolt said. “To be a really good offense, you have to dictate your at-bats.”

Cole Evans’ sixth-inning grand slam brought Nebraska within one of the Jayhawks.

He said the Huskers are handling adversity in the same way they did their 10-game winning streak that ended last week. Being present in the moment remains key.

“We’re aware that the game owes us nothing,” Evans said. “So win or lose, we knew the sun was going to come up today and that we’re going to have practice. We’ve got to be where our feet are, go to work, get better and get ready for the weekend.”

Bolt said there are still some guys trying to adjust to what does and doesn’t work at this level of baseball. Plus, there are guys who got off to rough starts that the skipper believes will rally down the stretch.

“I think the best is yet to come for our offense,” Bolt said. “I don’t think we’ve done nearly as well as we can. There’s been some great moments, but I think we can certainly continue to get better and I expect us to get better.”

Monitoring the bullpen

Nebraska’s bullpen has been a bit up and down in the last five games. Jalen Worthley’s 2 2/3 of scoreless relief against Ohio State stands out as a strong highlight. Casey Daiss, Kyle Perry and Evan Borst have all had good moments, too.

Then there are the second, third and fourth innings of the midweek games against Creighton and Kansas where it seemed things started to go off the rails.

“You’ve gotta attack the zone,” Bolt said. “The guys that have struggled at times are getting behind in the count and they’re either having to come over the middle of the plate and getting hit or getting things started with walks or hit by pitches.”

Nebraska’s top relievers have checked that box for the most part according to Bolt. All but one of the Huskers’ five bullpen arms with double-digit appearances has an ERA at or below 3.00. Tucker Timmerman (8.16 ERA) is the only one who doesn’t.

Borst is the only one of the other Nebraska arms with at least five appearances to have an ERA below 5.00.

“It’s the first-pitch strikes and the 1-1 counts, right?” Bolt said. “Can you get the count back in your favor when it’s 1-1? The guys that are getting the ball the most consistently are doing a good job of that.”

Data Dive: April’s look at the Nebraska pitching staff

In Week 3, we dove into how Nebraska’s pitching staff was living up to head coach Rob Childress’ preseason goals of a 3-1 strikeout-walk and 1-1 innings pitched-hits ratios. The Huskers averaged 2.94 strikeouts per walk and 1.04 hits per inning seven games into the season.

Now the sample size is much larger.

With 30 games and a little over half of the season in the rearview mirror, Nebraska is striking out 2.91 batters per issued walk and is allowing 0.84 hits per inning. Those numbers rank seventh and 12th respectively among D1Baseball’s top 25.

Casey Daiss said the message from the team’s coaching staff has been consistent.

“Keep pounding away, put in hours, always be present, don’t look at the future games, be at the games like the midweeks and when Saturday comes be ready for that game,” Daiss said. “Just go one game at a time and one inning at a time. Trust the process.”

D1Baseball’s top 25 is labeled above. All 25 teams are within the lower right-hand quadrant that features a high strikeout-walk ration and a low average of hits per inning. The national average is 1.82 strikeouts per walk and 1.09 hits per inning.

Nebraska baseball notes

***Nebraska’s 5-1 start in conference play tied a program best since joining the Big Ten. The Huskers opened winners of five of their first six in 2021, 2016 and 2013.

***Brett Sears is one of eight Husker pitchers since 1999 to start the season 6-0. He join Joba Chamberlin, Tony Watson, Brian Duensing, Zach Kroeke, Aaron Madsen, Shane Komine and Jeff Chesnut. He is the first to reach that mark since Chesnut in 2015.

***Sears is also one of two pitchers nationwide to throw 45 or more innings with 55 plus strikeouts and allow less than seven earned runs.

***Riley Silva is one of 10 players across Division-I to steal 19 bases and only be caught twice. No other Power Five athlete is in that category.

***Case Sanderson is batting .333 or better in each of the six different spots he has appeared in the Nebraska lineup. He has tallied a RBI and a walk in five of the six spots.

Know the foe: Rutgers

***At 20-12 and No. 52 in the RPI, Rutgers represents a Quad 1 win opportunity for Nebraska this weekend. The Huskers are 0-3 in such opportunities this year. Neutral site losses to Oklahoma and Texas Tech as well as the road defeat at Creighton make up NU’s results in the field.

***Nebraska leads Rutgers 12-9 through 19 meetings all-time. The Huskers last bested the Scarlet Knights by a score of 9-7 in the opening round of last year’s Big Ten Tournament. NU went 3-1 against Indiana and Rutgers in its last visit to Bainton Field in 2021.

***Six different Scarlet Knights have a batting average higher than .340 with more than 80 at-bats. Tony Santa-Maria and freshman slugger Ty Doucette have six and nine home runs respectively. Meanwhile, three of those six batters with an average above .340 have more than 25 RBIs.

***Player to watch: SS Josh Kuroda-Grauer

The junior from Somerset, New Jersey, is in the midst of an outstanding season. Entering the week, his batting average (.414) was tied for first in the Big Ten and he lead the conference in hits (55). Kuroda-Grauer’s batting average is up .116 points from his sophomore campaign. He is pacing the Scarlet Knights in batting average, hits, doubles (13) and has stolen 17 bases.

Around the Big Ten

Here are a few Big Ten series to keep tabs on this weekend as well as the conference standings. Records are as of Wednesday evening:

Series:

Penn State (17-12, 4-5) @ Indiana (18-15, 3-3)

Iowa (17-13, 5-4) @ Ohio State (15-14, 3-3)

Michigan State (14-16, 3-3) @ Purdue (20-13, 5-4)

Standings:

SCHOOL	CONF	PCT	ALL	PCT	HOME	ROAD	NEUT	STREAK
Nebraska	5-1	.833	22-8	.733	11-2	10-4	1-2	L2
Illinois	7-2	.778	17-13	.567	8-1	4-8	5-4	W1
Michigan	6-3	.667	15-19	.441	7-5	6-8	2-6	W1
Purdue	5-4	.556	20-13	.606	8-6	4-5	8-2	L1
Iowa	5-4	.556	17-13	.567	11-3	4-6	2-4	W1
Indiana	3-3	.500	18-15	.545	10-8	6-4	2-3	L1
Ohio State	3-3	.500	15-14	.517	4-4	7-9	4-1	W3
Michigan State	3-3	.500	14-16	.467	7-5	3-2	4-9	L2
Maryland	4-5	.444	22-12	.647	11-3	10-8	1-1	L2
Penn State	4-5	.444	17-12	.586	8-4	4-6	5-2	W4
Minnesota	2-4	.333	13-14	.481	3-2	7-8	3-4	W2
Rutgers	1-5	.167	20-12	.625	6-4	14-8	0-0	W1
Northwestern	0-6	.000	10-19	.345	1-5	9-14	0-0	L10

Broadcast Information

TV: Big Ten+: HERE

Radio: Huskers Radio Network (Radio simulcast found HERE)

Stations: Lincoln (1400 AM), Omaha (590 AM)