Illinois-Northwestern Preview

 

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Record: 25-17

Big Ten 11-9

vs Northwestern

at Illinois Field, Champaign, IL

 

Before I forget to mention it, the series with Northwestern has been moved back a day. due to weather concerns  So the first game is on Saturday, a doubleheader on Sunday and a night game on Monday. 

Illinois needs to make a good showing this weekend.  Why?  Because they finish up the the the regular season with some tough matchups.  They play Ohio State, who is always tough, in Columbus next weekend.  The weekend after that second place Purdue comes to town.  It would be nice to pick a few games up on everyone else against the Wildcats. 

Right now there still a bottleneck with third place Illinois at 11-9 and three others, Ohio State, Penn State and Northwestern all breathing down their necks, within one game of them.

Kyle Hudson’s ankle injury obviously is not 100% with Hartleb resting him on non-conference games.  My guess is we’ll see him in the all-important Big Ten games.  While I’m on the topic of injured Illini, Dom Altobelli tells me he’s building up strength in his shoulder that he injured last week.  It’ll still be a while for him, unfortunately.

Pet Peeve

Hey Big Ten.com, fix your stats page!  When I go to see the top ten in the conference in batting average, I see this:

INDIVIDUAL BATTING
Min 0.0 AB/Team game         G   Avg  AB    R    H  RBI   2B   3B   HR   BB
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yukelson, Drew PSU........   5 1.000   2    1    2    0    0    0    0    0
Muhlenbruch, Nick IOWA....   2 1.000   2    0    2    0    1    0    0    0
Tyler Burgoon MICH........   3 1.000   2    0    2    2    0    0    0    0
Jason Malefakis MICH......   1 1.000   1    0    1    0    0    0    0    0
Eric Katzman MICH.........   1 1.000   1    1    1    0    0    0    0    0
Streng, Matt OSU..........   4  .500   4    1    2    1    1    0    0    1
Mathis, Jake ILL..........   2  .500   2    0    1    0    0    0    0    0
Charles, Eric PUR.........   5  .500   2    1    1    0    1    0    0    0
Holm, Jeff MSU............   5  .462  13    2    6    1    0    0    0    1
Phegley, Josh IND.........  42  .441 152   42   67   48   15    1    7   24

Change your Minimum AB/G. It’s been this way since the beginning of the season and I can’t believe no one there has noticed.

Interestingly, the ERA is set correctly at 1.0 IP/G.

 

The details on Northwestern: 

Opponent: Northwestern University
Nickname: Wildcats
Conference: Big Ten
Head Coach: Paul Stevens (20th year)
Hometown: Evanston, IL
Current Record: 16-21 (10-10 Big Ten)
Baseball Program website: Link
Players to watch: 1B Jake Goebbert is hitting 3 points shy of .400 and leads the team with 7 homeruns and 39 rbis.  He leads the Big Ten in doubles.
Team Fact: Northwestern is second to last in the Big Ten with a 6.39 ERA.

 

See you at the ballpark!

Go Illini!!

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