Saturday, February 23, 2008
Pitching Is The Problem
By Aaron Morse
WNUR Sports
Head Coach Paul Stevens is optimistic about the baseball team’s chances this season. Looking at their offense, it’s hard not to agree with him. Despite the loss of stars Antonio Mule and Caleb Fields, the ‘Cats still possess a potent attack. Seniors Jake Owens and Mike Kalina are probably the headliners in this group. Owens set the NU single season record for hits in 2007 and hit a sensational .385. He was second in the team in RBIs behind Mule with 39. Owens split time between third and second base last year, but will be exclusively a second baseman this season barring any unexpected injuries. Meanwhile, Kalina has battled through an injury riddled career at NU, but the left fielder bounced back in the second half of last season to finish with a .304 batting average with 34 RBI’s. Two freshmen to watch on offense are third baseman Chris Lashmet and right fielder Nate Roberts. Roberts and senior Max Mann will split time out there, while Lashmet has third base all to himself. With speedy Aaron Newman at the top of the order, and sophomore first baseman Jake Goebbert in the middle of the order, NU is going to score a lot of runs this season.
There’s only one problem: they’re going to give up even more. Sophomore Cole Livermore was supposed to be the ace of the pitching staff, but he’s out for the season with an arm injury. By the way, ace is a relative term for NU baseball nowadays. Livermore finished last season with a 2-9 record and a 6.45 ERA. So instead, the ‘Cats have only one returning starter to their rotation: sophomore left hander Joe Muraski. Muraski wasn’t exactly a world beater last year, finishing with a 4-4 record. Meanwhile, freshman Eric Jokisch, and sophomore David Jensen are the two and three starters respectively.
Jokisch is intriguing. When talking with Owens, the veteran infielder said he was most impressed with Jokisch because the kid can throw hard, really hard. NU didn’t have a true power pitcher last year and that’s what Jokisch can give the ‘Cats. Another interesting note, Jokisch was a 39th round draft pick out of high school by the Cleveland Indians. This shows that MLB teams are already excited about the kid’s arm. Now we’ll see if Tim Stoddard can teach Jokisch how to harness that power and become a complete pitcher.
Meanwhile, Jensen is a wildcard. He had a fairly good non conference season last year, and would end up leading the team in appearances out of the pen. Now he’s thrust into the starting rotation. Jensen was 1-4 with a 7.71 ERA last year. Hopefully, one year through the fire of Division One baseball has helped Jensen mature as a pitcher. He got rocked in Big Ten play last year (an era of over 10), so he needs to make a big leap if the ‘Cats starting rotation is going to be respectable.
The bullpen is simply a disaster. Hard throwing senior Bo Schultz is listed as the “closer.” Schultz had an ERA of 8.82 last year. Two pitchers who need to step up big time in the pen are sophomore Jonathan Purcell and senior Matt Havey. Purcell had the best ERA on the team last year at the less than stellar mark of 4.76. Any contributions by freshmen Matt Gailey and Charlie Finch would just be a bonus. Gailey is listed as the fourth starter at the moment, so that could be another storyline to watch.
The team started out strong on Friday with a nice 13-7 win over Cal State Northridge. Kalina finished only a double short of the cycle and drove in four runs. Meanwhile, Muraski was OK, going six innings and giving up five runs. A good sign was Havey getting the save by pitching the final three innings; a bad sign is that he gave up two unearned runs, meaning defense continues to plague NU. Goebbert, Roberts, and Havey himself all were charged with errors, and that’s something that has to stop. The ‘Cats cannot afford to combine their shaky pitching with shaky defense as well. Still, the win is encouraging because of the sheer offensive firepower the ‘Cats showed. But the Matadors aren’t a particularly good team (they finished with a record of 15-41 last year). NU will face a huge test early when they travel to Tampa Bay for a few games with perennial power Oklahoma State. After that, they head to Kentucky to face Louisville, a team that went to the College World Series last year. Those games will give fans an early indication of what to expect from this squad.
What I expect right now is a lot of high scoring games. NU will be an entertaining team to watch if nothing else. For now, I see them improving on last year’s mark of 18-36 because I see their offense being even better than last year. Yes, they lost Mule and Fields, but the offense from top to bottom is to be feared by every team in the Big Ten. I also expect the sophomores who struggled last year as freshmen to improve (how could they not?!), and I’m optimistic that Jokisch can be an immediate impact pitcher. I see NU finishing this season with a record of 22-32 overall and 12-20 in the Big Ten. That’s an improvement of four games overall, and three games in the Big Ten. Should be a high scoring season…play ball!
