2024 Season Notes

Wow.. this most certainly wasn't expected coming into the season. Huge accomplishment by this young man and the defense behind him. Individual award yes but Brett, like he always does, will acknowledge the players making this possible.

Congrats to Brett and all of the Husker team!!

 
and.. in the Michigan vs Indiana doubleheader it appears like they'll split. Indiana leads top of 4, 10 - 0.

If that holds both teams will be officially eliminated from the regular season race with tomorrow's loser likely out of any hope for a post season appearance without winning the auto bid and as crooked as the B1G is, it wouldn't at all surprise me to see some B1G tourney shenanigan's. (I know, stop with this ridiculous hate but dang it, I can't help myself) 

and... Penn State currently up on Maryland 7 - 4 bottom of the 6th. Maryland's only chance at an at large was to sweep Penn State at home this series. If the score holds Maryland can be officially taken off the bubble watch. 

 
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Purdue threw their Friday starter (Morales) last night and took and L.

Illinois has their ace on the mound today (Omans) as Husker fans, let us hope Indiana can return the favor in today's game. 

On another note, MSU has it's best stats pitcher still available. (Dzierwa) today. Nick Powers is scheduled to face McConaughey. We'll see if MSU puts Dzierwa on the mound.  (He was scheduled to throw yesterday, not sure why he didn't). 

Edit:

I wonder if MSU is saving Dzierwa's arm for the tourney. Can't imagine they are. 3 teams (MSU, Maryland, Penn St.) are tied for the 8th spot. Maryland & Penn St are playing each other this weekend. Series winner eliminates the loser from the tourney. Maryland has the tie breaker on MSU. MSU has the tie breaker over PSU. So you can bet all MSU fans are huge PSU fans this weekend.

2nd Edit:

I'm posting my thoughts, not making predictions. In looking at the final to games in the Illinois vs Purdue series, I just don't see a Purdue victory thereby Illinois winning the crown and even if Purdue can win one of the two remaining, Nebraska needs to sweep and I lack confidence in that too. Sadly, I think the season ends with a second place finish for the Big Red. That horrible weekend series at Rutgers will be their downfall. That or the 9th inning implosion against Indiana. :cry  

 
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What on earth is wrong with today's strike zone. Just look at the number of pitches called in this 9 inning game ending with a score of 2 - 1. Brecht was pulled after the first. The umpire (Wayne Harris) is a joke. The B1G has to do better umpire scouting.

Horrid Umping.png

 
Loebarth said:
What on earth is wrong with today's strike zone. Just look at the number of pitches called in this 9 inning game ending with a score of 2 - 1. Brecht was pulled after the first. The umpire (Wayne Harris) is a joke. The B1G has to do better umpire scouting.

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Eh .... the BEST pitchers in MLB last year averaged about 15 pitches per inning.  From my anectdotal watching pitch counts during games, if they keep it under 20 they're doing OK.  This is about 19.  I'm not sure it's that far out of the norm.  FIU was about 2:1 strikes to balls so it doesn't seem that they had a tiny strike zone.

 
@Mavric Brecht throws 39 pitches to get out the first. He's undoubtedly the most potentially sound pro prospect pitcher in the B1G because he uses his insanely good fastball to setup his even nastier slider. This umpire was stupidly overmatched. I watched the game. Against the 2nd and 3rd batters Brecht had to start his slider inside and let it break across the heart of the plate to get a call. It was terrible. That ump doesn't deserve to be in the B1G and in your post above you're talking about majors where the box is slightly different and still, very rarely do you see a starter throw nearly 40 pitches in the first. Sure it happens but not nearly as often as your statistical argument leads one to believe. Mr. Harris needs to stay the heck out of D1 baseball. He's horrible!! Absolutely Horrendous!!

The Box following the "11" inning game of Arky vs TAM is an example of good pitch count numbers.

Horrid Umping.png

 
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Loebarth said:
@Mavric Brecht throws 39 pitches to get out the first. He's undoubtedly the most potentially sound pro prospect pitcher in the B1G because he uses his insanely good fastball to setup his even nastier slider. This umpire was stupidly overmatched. I watched the game. Against the 2nd and 3rd batters Brecht had to start his slider inside and let it break across the heart of the plate to get a call. It was terrible. That ump doesn't deserve to be in the B1G and in your post above you're talking about majors where the box is slightly different and still, very rarely do you see a starter throw nearly 40 pitches in the first. Sure it happens but not nearly as often as your statistical argument leads one to believe. Mr. Harris needs to stay the heck out of D1 baseball. He's horrible!! Absolutely Horrendous!!
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It took five seconds on Google to find Blake Snell (two time Cy Young winner) threw 43 pitches in a first inning last year.  Daniel Norris of the Tigers threw 54 in the first a few years ago.  Bartolo Colon once took 61 pitches to get out of the first inning.  Steve Trachsel threw 61 pitches in an inning.  Those are all major league guys.

Yes, it's rare.  But it does happen.  And, with the overall game being pretty average, it seems that there were probably other factors that we more of the cause.

 
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Loebarth said:
@Mavric Brecht throws 39 pitches to get out the first. He's undoubtedly the most potentially sound pro prospect pitcher in the B1G because he uses his insanely good fastball to setup his even nastier slider. This umpire was stupidly overmatched. I watched the game. Against the 2nd and 3rd batters Brecht had to start his slider inside and let it break across the heart of the plate to get a call. It was terrible. That ump doesn't deserve to be in the B1G and in your post above you're talking about majors where the box is slightly different and still, very rarely do you see a starter throw nearly 40 pitches in the first. Sure it happens but not nearly as often as your statistical argument leads one to believe. Mr. Harris needs to stay the heck out of D1 baseball. He's horrible!! Absolutely Horrendous!!

The Box following the "11" inning game of Arky vs TAM is an example of good pitch count numbers.

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There is a reason Brecht was demoted to a Sunday starter for a large part of the year. He simply hasn’t thrown strikes at a decent rate this year. His stuff is elite, but he hasn’t shown the control this season. Over the past couple of weeks, starting just before I@wa came into Haymarket actually, is when Brecht started to turn it around and was moved up to Saturday starts. Looks like he regressed again today. 

 
Loebarth said:
Are you assuming or did you watch him pitch that first inning. I watched and the catcher was like shaking his head when the "ball" was called. 
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No I didn’t watch the game, but the box score you posted doesn’t really show any anomalies in the strike zone. I will defer to your visual assessment, but your post above threw out a box score saying it showed that the number of pitches thrown was outrageous and proof that the umpire is a disgrace/joke, which is where I disagree with you.

Why did FIU have a 65% strike rate? Also, as Mav noted, the overall number of pitches was similar for both teams (FIU-166 vs I@wa-174) and averages out to 18-19 pitches/inning, not an unusual average.

I don’t see the box score from NU-MSU yesterday yet, but IU against NU the weekend before threw 161, 184, and 121 pitches against NU. The B1G doesn’t show total pitches on its stats website, but IU is similar to I@wa in staff ERA (IU-6.13 vs I@wa-6.00), but IU is 8th in the conference for total BB’s issued (228) and I@wa is dead last by a mile (309); NU is tops in the league btw (146). Neither IU nor I@wa have shown great control, but I don’t see how 174 pitches in a game is indicative of a major umpire issue when you compare that to IU, who has been a fair bit better in BB’s issued this year, had games of 161 and 184 pitches respectively in a series last weekend. Especially when FIU threw just 8 pitches less (166 pitches) more than I@wa in a 1 run game.

I can’t argue your visual assessment of the game since you watched it, but I am not seeing anything in the box score that would lead me, or anyone else to the same conclusion unless you watched the game. 

 
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