All Things Gopher Baseball

Through a game and a half Iowa has completely owned us this series.

Terrible at bats have led to 10 k thru 5 innings. We walked the leadoff guy in 4 of 6 innings. Trail 0-6
 


14k thru 7. Larson ejected for arguing strikes. McDevitt then ejected for arguing called strikes against Richter.

Let's look in the mirror instead of at the ump. The effort has been awful. Knoll let a HR clear the fence by inches without even jumping.
 

You can't miss a call like that called strike 3 on Richter. Huge potential game swinging moment and you decided the opposite batting box is part of the strike zone.
 

Iowa just more productive situationally in game 3 the difference. Gophers left 14 men on base, I think it was 3 different innings started 1st and 2nd nobody out and they never moved from there.
 


Early game: 0-10 RISP. 19 k
Late game: 2-15 RISP, 10 k

Absolutely brutal.
 

You can't miss a call like that called strike 3 on Richter. Huge potential game swinging moment and you decided the opposite batting box is part of the strike zone.

We were down 0-6 with nobody on in that inning. Wasn't quite a game swinging moment.
 


Early game: Iowa leadoff runner gets on in 6 of first 7 innings....5 by BB or HBP

This series was a brutal wake up call. Dominated in every facet. Game 3 was only close because of Iowa mistakes.
 



You must be thinking of a different time, I'm talking about game 2 6-3 bottom of the 6th bases loaded.
I was talking about early game when Ty got ejected after Richter k'd.

I was walking back to car for play you were talking about and you are right. Kids underdressed for the game and we're getting too cold. Lol
 
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Is this just growing pains or is the program in desperate need of an overhaul?
 

I was talking about early game when Ty got ejected after Richter k'd.

I was walking back to car for play you were talking about and you are right. Kids underdressed for the game and we're getting too cold. Lol
Yeah I didn't get to see much of the first game our lovely BTN+ went out due to campus outage in I think the top of the 2nd. Came back on for like the top of the 6th maybe? Larson doubled that inning and it went right back off. Stuck with Iowa radio and live stats majority of that game
 

Is this just growing pains or is the program in desperate need of an overhaul?
Iowa is a good team but this certainly wasn't our most crisp series. Felt to me like one of those where we would get close to getting right back in but couldn't come through with the hit and then Iowa would respond with a haymaker a lot of times boosted by us and we couldn't recover in 1 and 2. In game 3 I thought we did a better job of stabilizing but again we couldn't come through with the big hit and had a lot of opportunities that game.
 



Not many bright spots in this series. The first game today was flat out gross Was hoping we would get that key hit we needed late in the finale to avoid the sweep, but didn't happen. Hoping they can flush this from their system and not have the season go pear-shaped.
 




Conference Records and RPI rankings through 3/30. Top 12 teams qualify for Big Ten Tournament.
RankTeamConf RecordOverall RecordRPI
1​
UCLA10-222-5
4​
1​
Iowa10-215-9
78​
3​
Oregon8-420-7
62​
4​
Michigan7-515-12
58​
5​
Northwestern5-412-13
129​
5​
Washington5-411-16
154​
7​
Penn State6-617-10
115​
7​
USC6-616-11
47​
7​
Indiana6-615-13
101​
10​
Michigan State4-517-10
100​
10​
Illinois4-513-11
125​
10​
Rutgers4-513-15
103​
13​
Purdue3-620-7
110​
13​
Maryland3-614-14
118​
15​
Nebraska2-712-15
75​
15​
Minnesota2-711-14
48​
15​
Ohio State2-78-16
150​
 

Good:
I wasn't going to write anything here but I'll give credit to Landon Lozier. Rarely used in the first month and he came on as a sub and went 3-5 with 3 BB for the series. For a 3-game set where we took terrible at-bats, he was one of the lone bright spots of one who had consistently positive approaches at the plate .

Bad/Ugly:
Everything else. We touched on it already but some low points.
Game 1: Gave up 12BB and 17H
Game 2: Gave up 5 BB, 2 HBP and 15 H....all while only collecting 3 hits ourselves and striking out 19 times. That game was abysmal and the lineup puzzled me. With Spanier out we also sat Richter and Berkland to start the game. Arguably our 3 best hitters were not on the field for what had to be considered a crucial game. Moot point I guess as Richter/Berkland subbed in and went a combined 0-5 with 4 k's anyway.

The hitting with RISP was missing all weekend.
 

Conference schedule next weekend:
Iowa (11-2) @ Northwestern (5-5) - Iowa leads series 1-0
Michigan State (4-5) @ Indiana (6-6)
Maryland (3-6) @ Illinois (4-5)
Rutgers (4-5) @ Nebraska (2-7)
Michigan (7-5) @ Oregon (8-4)
Ohio State (2-7) @ USC (6-6)
Purdue (3-6) @ Washington (5-4)
Penn State (6-6) @ Minnesota (2-7)

Non-Conference:
San Diego @ UCLA
 
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First pitch for Friday moved to 4pm CDT.
Game times for Saturday and Sunday remain 3pm and 1pm, respectively.
 

Trailing 1-4 in b6. Gophers can't get a break. With RISP they are 0-4 3k. Richter is 1 for his last 12 with 7k. He's not doing Berkland any favors.
 

Little things are just killing us slowly.
1. Error at 3b comes around on subsequent HR
2. Drop third strikeout that would have ended the inning gets on first and comes around.
3. Runners at 1st and 2nd with one out and we pick off back runner. We let lead runner get to third (which should never happen) and he ends up scoring on a single

Currently trail 1-5 but 3 of these runs are due to our own miscues.
 


Up 2-1 in t9, 2 outs and nobody on. Clauson a strike away from ending the game:
Single
Error by 3b on throw
HBP
Bases clearing double
Wild pitch
Single.

Lost 2-5. Neels was a foot away from tying it but LF caught it at the wall. Heartbreaking
 

Up 2-1 in t9, 2 outs and nobody on. Clauson a strike away from ending the game:
Single
Error by 3b on throw
HBP
Bases clearing double
Wild pitch
Single.

Lost 2-5. Neels was a foot away from tying it but LF caught it at the wall. Heartbreaking
Absolute torture, sure felt to me like that zone got way tighter in the 9th compared to the rest of the game. Pitch before the double looked almost exactly the same as the called strike 3 to end the 8th.
 

Gophers snap the losing streak with win over the Jackrabbits. Not pretty at plate or in field, but enough for the victory. Elbeery suffered some type of leg injury running to first and limped off field, and so he might be unavailable for a while.
 

Gophers cruise to a 12-2 win over Saint Thomas. Gophers took advantage of walks and some sloppy play by Tommies, while Gopher pitchers combined to give up just 4 hits and 1 walk.

Let's hope the team can regain some of their form from earlier in season. Drop the series in Columbus and their prospects for conference tournament look grim.
 





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