Minnesota pitching gem smothers Huskers in Big Ten opener
LINCOLN, Neb. - Before Friday afternoon’s game at Haymarket Park, wind gusts over 30 miles per hour shifted the outfield flags in toward home plate.
On a day when no baseball even reached the warning track, it was a nine-hole hitter and a team adept at roping singles that found itself on the right side of the scoreboard.
The Nebraska baseball team had just one extra base hit as Minnesota’s Reggie Meyer went 8.0 innings behind a timely offense, holding down the Husker bats and propelling the Golden Gophers to a 5-1 win in the Big Ten opener for both teams.
Nebraska senior right-hander Luis Alvarado was serviceable through five innings, but walked the first two batters of the sixth and saw both score after Mike Waldron replaced him on the mound. NU worked against a 2-1 deficit for the majority of the game, but a 2-for-18 clip with runners on base kept the scoring down.
The Huskers advanced just six of the 18 total baserunners into scoring position.
“I thought we chased a lot of pitches down,” head coach Darin Erstad said. “I think (Meyer) pitches with good angle, but I don’t think we hunted elevation as much as we could.”
The Husker offense saw the only run come across in the second inning after a Scott Schreiber leadoff double. The senior waltzed in from third on a Luke Roskam single through the right side to cut the Gopher lead to 2-1.
But the NU bats went as cold as the early spring day from there. The Huskers advanced just one runner past first in the next 3.2 innings, with the lone outlier coming in the third after a leadoff bunt single by Alex Henwood.
Meanwhile, Minnesota would rely on timely hitting to scratch out runs. Nine-hole hitter Alex Boxwell had the first 4 RBIs of the game for the Gophers and was a spark plug at the end of the lineup.
While all runs in the game were earned, Alvarado let go of a season-high six walks after amassing just six all season.
“I think I fell behind (in counts) a lot,” Alvarado said. “I just feel like I didn’t have my A-game.”
One bright spot for the Big Red was catcher Jesse Wilkening, who returned to the defensive lineup for the first time since March 9 after dealing with a sore shoulder.
The junior backstop made his presence felt early with a perfect pick-off of a stealing Boxwell in the second inning, and later picked up his 100th career hit.
That single, however, went stranded in the Husker 6th inning as NU tried and tried again to rally against Meyer. In the end, the Minnesota junior’s line read 8.0 innings, 8 hits, a run and 5 strikeouts on 105 pitches.
The Huskers lost their seventh straight series-opening game and fell to 12-10 in the defeat.
“That’s not how we go about it,” Wilkening said of looking at the schedule in series format. “It’s coming out every day, and every day’s a new series. We can still win the series here, so we just need to salvage tomorrow and the next day.”
Nebraska returns to action Saturday against the Golden Gophers as the Huskers look for their first Big Ten win. First pitch from NU junior Matt Waldron is set for 2:05 p.m. at Haymarket Park.