Around the Horn: Nebraska baseball opens its 2024 season in Arlington

Nebraska baseball is finally ready to kickoff its 2024 season. The Huskers will take on Baylor, No. 21 Texas Tech and Oklahoma in the Shriners Children’s College Showdown at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas. It’s Nebraska’s second time playing at the home of the Texas Rangers in the last three seasons.

Here’s more on opening weekend including pitching matchups, storylines, opponent scouts, broadcast information and more.

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Projecting Nebraska’s pitching

Friday, Baylor, 11:00 a.m., RHP Brett Sears (2023 stats: 0-0, 5.29 ERA, 17.0 IP, 23 K) vs. RHP Mason Marriot (2023 stats: 1-7, 7.52 ERA, 58.2 IP, 50 K)

Saturday, No. 21 Texas Tech, 3:00 p.m., LHP Will Walsh (2023 stats: 5-3, 4.24 ERA, 51.0 IP, 44 K) vs. RHP Zane Petty (2023 stats: 3-2, 5.68 ERA, 38.0 IP, 32 K)

Sunday, Oklahoma, 10:30 a.m., LHP Caleb Clark (2023 stats: 1-1, 13.24 ERA, 17.0 IP, 14 K) Vs. TBD

What to watch for the Huskers

Starting off on the right foot

Under head coach Will Bolt, Nebraska baseball owns a 5-9-1 record on the opening weekend. The Huskers have won one season-opening series in five years, which was at Purdue to start the COVID-altered 2021 season. Nebraska last won a non-conference series to start a season in 2019 when the Huskers took three of four from UC Riverside.

Baylor gets things started at 11:00 a.m. on Friday in what feels like Nebraska’s best opportunity for a win this weekend. The Bears last posted a winning record in 2021 and are fresh off a 20-35 campaign. The next two opponents were each regional qualifiers in 2023 (albeit Oklahoma as a relatively weak one). Texas Tech is the top dog and, apart from No. 24 Kansas State and No. 20 Iowa, is the only ranked team on the schedule.

The Shriners Children’s College Showdown is the crown jewel of the Huskers’ non-conference slate. Finding a way to win two of the first three would give Nebraska a chance to finally carry early momentum into the first month of the season.

What do the Huskers get out of the starting rotation?

This is the question of the offseason and its answer will determine much of Nebraska’s success or failure in 2024.

All three of Nebraska’s opening-weekend starters have had roller coaster careers in Lincoln. Two of the three posted ERAs over 5.00 in 2023. Caleb Clark stepped in as the Sunday starter at the beginning of the season last year but struggled mightily as a freshman allowing more than three earned runs in five of nine appearances.

Reliever Brett Sears appeared 11 times in his first season with the Huskers and gave up 10 earned runs in 18 innings of work. His summer numbers as a starter in the Northwoods League stand in stark contrast at two earned runs in 29 innings with an impressive 32-3 strikeout to walk ratio. In his last full season as a starter with Iowa Central, he compiled a 3.06 ERA with 114 strikeouts in 85 1/3 innings of work.

He is in line for his first Husker start on Friday morning.

Lastly, Will Walsh draws arguably the toughest matchup against a Texas Tech team that averaged 8.1 runs per game in 2023. The southpaw is Nebraska’s most experienced starter entering this year with eight starts and 51 innings of work under his belt from last season. Strong off-speed pitches can be used to counteract some of his velocity shortcomings.

Data Dive: Replacing Max Anderson and Brice Matthews

Data Dive will be a new segment in this season’s Around the Horn. Each week, I will produce some sort of data visualization to highlight a key storyline of the week for Nebraska baseball. There is no better story to analyze further than the challenge the Husker bats collectively face in filling the batting gloves of Brice Matthews and Max Anderson.

The duo finished first and second in both RBIs (137 total) and home runs (41).

In the RBI department, Matthews and Anderson accounted for 33.8% of the runs Nebraska drove in. Only one Power Five program (Missouri) saw its top two RBI leaders produce more of their team’s RBIs (34.1%). Among all 300 Division-I college baseball teams, the Husker duo finished 17th in this category.

Above is a scatterplot that includes labels for the top 15 RBI duos from all Power Five programs. Teams in the lower left quadrant didn’t have many RBIs and their top two RBI leaders didn’t produce that much. In the top left are teams with few team RBIs but some big producers. The lower and top right are the opposite. Obviously, the top right is the place to be.

LSU and Maryland are teams that jump off the page right away. It’s easy to see why the Tigers are so high and the Terrapins had an outstanding offensive year in 2023, small ballpark aside. Nebraska just squeaked past the dividing line for team RBIs into the best quadrant.

One last note. The two dots all the way in the bottom left (basically offensive purgatory), those are Minnesota and Northwestern.

Time to close this section out by looking at the Big Ten and strictly home runs. Nebraska finished second in the league in long balls but the production was rather top heavy at 42.2%. Only Purdue and Minnesota had a greater percentage of their home runs come from their top two homer leaders.

All offseason, the Huskers have preached balance not only in the way the team will score but in who fills the holes Anderson and Matthews left behind. No two individual players can replace a pair of All-Americans. These numbers give a lot of credence to that argument.

Nebraska baseball notes

***Nebraska returns 46.2% of its hits, 44.2% of its RBIs, 41.2% of its home runs, 49.5% of its doubles, 30.3% of its pitching wins, 40.4% of its starts, 37% of its innings pitched and 36.5% of its strikeouts from the 2023 squad.

***This weekend will mark the Huskers seventh trip for a series in a MLB Ballpark since 2000. Nebraska’s best record at an MLB Ballpark is in the now-demolished Metrodome (10-4). Globe Life Field is the only venue of the seven in which the Huskers are winless (0-3).

***Of Nebraska’s 40-man roster, 29 players have never appeared in a game as a Husker.

***Under Bolt, Nebraska is 76-15 when scoring six or more runs. The Huskers met that benchmark in over 30 games last year and finished 26-7 in such games.

***In 24 seasons at Nebraska and Texas A&M, pitchers under Rob Childress have compiled a 3.67 ERA, recorded 8.10 strikeouts per nine innings, allowed 8.62 hits per nine innings, have a 2.7-1 strikeout to walk ratio and average 489.1 strikeouts per season.

Know the foes: Baylor, No. 21 Texas Tech, Oklahoma

Baylor:

***The Bears are coming off back-to-back losing seasons and a 20-35 finish in 2023, which was the team’s lowest win total since 1972. Head coach Mitch Thompson will look to bounce back for his second season in Waco.

***The Bears hold a 37-30-1 all-time series lead over Nebraska. Friday will be the second time the Huskers have opened a season against Baylor. The first meeting in 2020 resulted in the first victory of the Bolt era by a score of 19-9.

No. 21 Texas Tech

***Nebraska controls the all-time series with Texas Tech by a 32-21 margin. The Huskers last faced the Red Raiders in 2019 and took down a then-No. 3 rated program in a 2-1 pitchers’ duel. Saturday will mark just the second meeting between Nebraska and Texas Tech since the Huskers joined the Big Ten.

***Four players in the Texas Tech lineup crushed double-digit homers in 2023 and four players recorded a batting average above .300. The Red Raiders won 41 games in 2023 before the team’s season came to an end in Gainesville after losing consecutive elimination games to the No. 2-seeded Florida Gators.

***Player to watch: Kevin Bazzell

Bazzell is a third-year sophomore catcher who was a Collegiate Baseball and NCBWA First-Team Freshman All-American selection last year. He started all 63 games and hit .348 on the season with 24 doubles, 10 home runs and 62 RBIs. He led his team in hits (87) and doubles (24).

Oklahoma

***Nebraska last played Oklahoma in the Huskers’ final season in the Big 12 during the 2011 season. The Sooners won a pair of games on 9-2 and 4-1 decisions. All-time, the Sooners lead the series 146-102-2.

***Oklahoma snuck into the Charlottesville Regional last year despite a 32-28 record and 11-13 conference mark. The Sooners are now two years removed from a berth in the College World Series final and a 45-win season.

***Player to watch: Bryce Madron

The senior outfielder was named to the Preseason All-Big 12 team in late January. Madron was an All-Big 12 honorable mention last year after hitting .320 and leading the Sooners with 12 home runs, 15 doubles, 51 RBIs, 61 walks and 58 runs scored. The 5-foot-8, 181-pounder transferred from Cowley College prior to the 2023 season.

Around the Big Ten

Here are a few Big Ten series/games to keep tabs on this weekend:

Friday, February 16:

No. 12 Duke (0-0) vs. Indiana (0-0), Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, 10:00 a.m.

Ohio State (0-0) vs. Boston College (0-0), Phoenix, Arizona, 2:00 p.m.

No. 20 Iowa (0-0) vs. Seton Hall (0-0), Charleston, South Carolina, 4:00 p.m.

Saturday, February 17:

Illinois (0-0) vs. No. 1 Wake Forest (0-0), Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 11:00 a.m.

No. 20 Iowa (0-0) vs. Ball State (0-0), Charleston, South Carolina, 11:00 a.m.

Indiana (0-0) vs. No. 18 Coastal Carolina (0-0), Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, 2:00 p.m.

Sunday, February 18:

Ohio State (0-0) vs. USC (0-0), Phoenix, Arizona, 6:00 p.m.

Broadcast Information

TV: FloSports: HERE

Radio: Huskers Radio Network (Radio simulcast found HERE)

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