First impressions on the year. 4-3 record over 8 or 9 days or so.
Starting pitching is going well for the most part.
There are some bats in the lineup.
Middle relief needs some work to do.
Early season errors are going to happen at the beginning of the season.
Caron is seeing pitches like it's batting practice and he's grooving the ball all over the field. All hitters love that feeling.
Stone.... That's my guy. I think big fella is one of those hitters that can just hit a ball hard. His swing sends balls into the gap, or off of fences. Or else he might just blast one out of the park. He is one of those rare power hitters that a seeing-eye single was not for intent, but dammit, the way it comes off the bat - you weren't ready for it, and it's a base hit single the other way. I have known guys like that. Just can't wait to see Stone get hot and into a grove.
On the road + On the road vs good teams.
Unfortunately the Huskers don't get the luxury to play the first 10 games at home as if they were at home in warmer weather like Louisiana, Texas, California, Florida, Tennessee, Alabama, etc.
I always feel like that is a mental advantage (home to start the year) and disadvantage (away games to start the year). You can easily get hot playing at home for a few weeks, and settling into roles at home.......than you could opening up on the road.
Huskers - stop starting the year off against teams ranked in the top 50. All you are doing is setting it up for a lot of strikeouts (both teams I must say) and we've seen it before. It just doesn't matter other than delaying the start of the year!
I don't care what some nerds are going to say to challenge this thought by using measuring stats for strength of schedule bulls#!t, but I think the Huskers need to schedule the weakest part of the schedule at the beginning of the year.
Go get your pitching right first. Go get your bats swinging. Go get your mid-relief pitching set up and your depth and role players ready.
Go beat the weakest teams possible. Build up your team's confidence. Get the big ball batters jacking out doubles and homers. Win some games 23-4 and 17-2......Get out to a 10-0 start. And then sprinkle in the tougher opponents. When late April gets here, aint nobody going to give a s#!t who you beat at the beginning of the year......it goes right over their head because you have those extra 10 or 12 wins...... and that wins always bring the eyeballs more than "well, we lost to some great teams early on the road". Forget that. Start the year winning against UNL-Kearney and Milwaukee-State........ get your team warmed up for the tougher schedule down the road.