NU Notebook: Pitching, Defense Key During Streak

Minnesota has used a tried and true formula in winning two of the last three Big Ten Conference regular-season baseball titles while compiling a 49-19 league record over that period.

“Good players, play defense, can really pitch,” Nebraska coach Darin Erstad said matter-of-factly.

Toss in an above-average offense, and the Gophers do special things, like season, when they advanced to the Super Regionals of the NCAA Tournament against top-seeded Oregon State.

“They just don’t beat themselves,” Erstad said Wednesday, “and when you do that, you have a chance to win on a consistent basis.”

We bring up Minnesota’s recent success for a couple of reasons. One, the Gophers host Nebraska in a three-game weekend series, beginning Friday.

And two, if you look closely, you’ll see the Huskers have been using the Gophers’ winning recipe during their current six-game winning streak, which includes a 3-0 start to Big Ten Conference play.

“I think defensively, we’re starting to play like we can, and we’ve limited the free passes,” Erstad said, when asked what’s impressed him most during Nebraska’s recent streak. “We’ve figured out how not to create offense for the other team. That’s a big deal.”

No, Erstad admits, the Huskers haven’t been stellar offensively. But they’ve done enough, especially coming off a nine-day layoff because of poor weather.

“Coming off that long break and not showing a ton of rust, I like that,” Erstad said. “Now, hopefully as we continue to get some games on a consistent basis, we can play some consistent baseball.”

Erstad will stick with the pitching rotation of Matt Waldron, Nate Fisher and Reece Eddins against Minnesota. Last weekend, in a home sweep of Michigan State, the trio combined to pitch 21.1 innings while allowing eight hits and only one walk.

Limiting walks not only helps pitchers, it keeps the defense alert, too. And an alert defense is a more dependable one.

“The biggest thing it does, it keeps you in the flow of the game,” Erstad said. “When a pitcher’s working with a good tempo, balls are being put in play and you just get into the flow of the game. Usually a good defense comes with that, and we’ve been able to make some pretty nice plays to stop momentum for the other team.”

Erstad this team is too hungry and too focused to get caught up in a winning streak, thinking it’s arrived when it probably hasn’t.

“Early on, you play some quality teams and you get humbled, and then you play some quality teams and you have some success,” he said. “You understand your lane in this whole thing. We know we’re decent, can get better, but we’re definitely not ‘roll the balls out there and get a win’ kind of team.

“Like I’ve said before, these guys have some fight in them, and they like to get after it and compete.”

Keeping It Simple

Before gathering two hits in two official at-bats Tuesday night against Creighton, senior infielder Angelo Altavilla was batting an even .200 – the dreaded Mendoza Line.

“It was kind of a rocky start, the last 25 at-bats,” said Altavilla, whose first hit Tuesday night was a game-tying double. “It was very overwhelming at times, but to get that hit was a good sense of relief.”

Altavilla has battled through tough offensive stretches before now, especially after he burst onto the scene as a sophomore.

“Teams have scouting reports on you,” he said. “They know how to pitch right at you.”

Combating that, he said, comes down to “keeping it simple” and doing what got him this far in the first place.

Erstad said emerging from slumps for upperclassmen is usually mental, about not trying to do too much, not being too anxious and just going and playing the game.

“The sooner you can get to have that mentality and just playing in your backyard and not worrying about whatever happens, the better,” Erstad said. “You say that, but then you have to go out there and say, ‘Screw it,’ and just go play. When that moment hits, then you’re in a good spot.”

“Raising A Trophy”

Nebraska baseball fans of all ages will enjoy and appreciate a recent Huskers Sports Network podcast by Brandon Gries and Nate Rohr on the 1999 Husker baseball team, called “Raising A Trophy.”

From the introduction to the podcast, which you can find here:

Will Bolt caught the final out of the Super Regional on June 2, 2001, sending Nebraska to its first College World Series in school history. But the ‘Road to Omaha’ started long before that. This is the story of the 1999 Huskers, a team that scored an NCAA-record 50 runs, swept Texas at Buck Beltzer Field, and knocked off two CWS qualifiers en route to the Big 12 Tournament title. Twenty years later, this is a look back at Dave Van Horn’s team that set the tone for a decade of success.

Keeping Score

When Scott Frost begins a sentence with “Listen,” more often than not, you’d better, because the Nebraska football coach is about to make a profound statement or opinion on some matter at hand.

Wednesday, the topic was competing. Seems Frost’s Huskers are doing more of that this spring than in the infancy of Frost’s tenure here a year ago.

“Listen, guys that I want in this program are guys that want to compete,” Frost said after Nebraska’s practice. “We didn’t have enough of that when our staff first got here. We had competition today in our offense versus defense, and it was our second time doing that, and every play mattered. We were keeping score.

“Whether it’s fair or not and whether people like it or not, there’s a scoreboard in life, in football, in everything. We shouldn’t run from that. I want guys that are at their best when the chips are down and we need to compete.”

Barrett Ruud can provide one such example. When the inside linebackers coach returned from Spring Break on Sunday, he walked into his office to find a group of linebackers already there, watching tape.

“The guys love football,” Ruud said, “and they’re working really hard at it.”

It’s among the biggest differences Ruud can see between now and a year ago. Now that the culture is further established, it’s allowed for more second-level learning.

“It’s not installs,” Ruud said. “It’s understanding what an offense is doing to attack you, how you’ve got tools to deal with those problems. That’s what defense is, understanding issues, and I think we’re a lot further along in that regard.”

Reach Brian at brosenthal@huskers.com or follow him on Twitter @GBRosenthal.