“Slugger Showdown” begins Thursday at Illinois Field

 

This is it local Illinois baseball fans!  If you don’t get out to Illinois Field in the next three days, you will have to travel to Omaha to see the Orange and Blue. 

This is an “early” weekend as the series begins on Thursday and ends on Saturday.  Illinois (29-17, 13-8 Big Ten) will host the tenth place Nebraska Cornhuskers (23-26, 7-12 Big Ten) in what is being billed as the “Slugger Showdown”.  Illinois’ Bren Spillane and Nebraska’s Scott Schreiber are the top two in homeruns in the Big Ten conference.  If the wind is blowing out, look for balls flying towards Florida Avenue! 

Assured of a tournament bid, Illinois is looking to improve their seed in next week’s tournament.  They can also play spoiler for the Cornhuskers as Darin Erstad’s team is fighting for the last tourney bid.

 

Pitching Probables

 

Thursday: Cyrillo Watson (1-1, 4.58 ERA)

Friday: Andy Fisher (5-2, 4.18 ERA)

Saturday: Ty Weber (4-3, 3.42 ERA)

The big change here is that Cyrillo Watson is spelling Quinn Snarskis on Thursday night.  Cy has come off a few good outings there is never a better opportunity than this to show what he is made of. 

In Ty Weber’s last two starts, only two of his nine runs allowed were earned.  He’s probably asking for extra fielding practice.  Joking aside, it would be great if Weber could get his fifth win of the year. 

Holy cow, Joey Gerber has 41 strikeouts in just 25 2/3 innings!  With one more save, Gerber will tie Tyler Jay for the team record with 14.

 

 

Darin Erstad’s Cornhuskers are going through a bit of a rebuild in 2018.  After taking the Big Ten championship last year with a 35-22-1 overall record and a 16-7-1 conference mark, things haven’t gone as well this year.  They are 7-12 against their B1G colleagues and in 10th place.  This puts them in jeopardy of missing the conference tournament (and the Illini are happy to help). 

While the Illini have Bren Spillane, the Cornhuskers have Scott Schreiber.  He his just two homers behind Spillane with 18.  No other Big Ten hitter has more than 12.  Schreiber is three spots under Bren among conference hitting leaders with a .385 mark.  He even leads the conference with 59 runs scored.

While Nebraska has scored a lot of runs in 2018, they have also given up a lot too.  Their 5.53 ERA ranks second highest next to Northwestern.  That’s good news to the Illinois bats. 

Either way, I’m predicting some high scoring games! 

 

Follow the games:  @IlliniBaseball  || WDWS AM-1400  || Fighting Illini Sports Network || Live Stats

 

Random Ramblings

In case this is keeping you up at night, Illinois has clinched a spot in the Big Ten Baseball Tournament.  That in itself is a victory for the team.  So many seasons, the tournament bid was determined in the last regular season weekend.  The pressure is off and the boys can have fun.

That said, the games do mean something.  At best, Illinois can enter the tournament with a second seed.  At worst, Illinois can go in with a seventh seed.  No doubt, the Illini will try their best to get their best position possible. 

As in 2017, the Big Ten Baseball Tournament, which starts next Wednesday, will be an eight-team double-elimination tournament.  The Big Ten Baseball Tournament Central website is shaping up.  We’ll all be visiting here a lot next week.

 

Thursday is “Spring Cleaning Night” which includes free outdated yet still fun promo souvenirs.  Lots of prizes will be given away on Friday every inning.  It’s being billed as “9 Innings of Winning”. 

 

Saturday will be a little bittersweet.  We’ll be saying goodbye to two players that day.  One is catcher Mark Skonieczny.  I had to add his name to my spell check after many failed attempts.  That photo of Mark above totally captures his approach to the game. 

Transfer pitcher Jackson Douglas is also leaving us.  He’s leaving his mark at Illinois with this…

There is no award for Fungo All-American. That needs to change.

This is @jackdouglas18‘s story. #FungoAllAmerican pic.twitter.com/iLFqTfFuHJ

— Illini Baseball (@IlliniBaseball) May 16, 2018

He’s got my vote. 

 

Go Illini!!