Kansas Baseball Game Preview: Creighton

The Jayhawks come home to try and bank a win against the Blue Jays.

The Kansas Jayhawks opened Big 12 play against the TCU Horned Frogs going 0-3. They will play a mid-week home game against the 9-8 Creighton Blue Jays.

The Kansas Jayhawks Need to Maintain a Top Defense

The Jayhawks have yet to show consistency in all facets of a game. We have witnessed the pitching staff dominate, and we have seen them struggle. The same consistency has been demonstrated by the hitters, up and down. One area in which the Jayhawks have been tremendous is fielding. Before the TCU series, Kansas ranked in the top 10 in NCAA D1 baseball. The Jayhawks currently rank 38th with a .978 fielding percentage. A higher fielding percentage alleviates the pressure on the pitching staff by not giving up unearned base runners. In order to win against Creighton, who also has a tremendous field percentage will have to limit the mistakes. Creighton is ranked 14th in NCAA D1 baseball with a .981 fielding percentage.

The Jayhawk Hitters Need to Focus On On-Base Percentage

OBP or on-base percentage refers to "how frequently a batter reaches base per plate appearance. Times on base include hits, walks, and hit-by-pitches." The Jayhawk hitters have to focus on this statistic as they are currently ranked 239th in NCAA D1 baseball with a .349 OBP. To give some comparison the No. 1 team in NCAA D1 baseball is Campbell with a .468 OBP. To break this down more and to show how effective this statistic is Campbell is ranked 6th in walks with 154 and 25th in hits. Both these add to the on-base percentage. It would be nice to see the Jayhawks in the top tier of OBP, but that currently is not the case.

Kansas hitters have only walked 84 times which ranks them tied for 225th in D1 baseball and they have 188 hits this season which ranks them tied for 198th. One of the more promising young Jayhawk hitters, Jackson Klein leads the team in OBP with .512. In 17 games played Klein has eight walks, 13 hits, and one hit-by-pitch. Klein is showing the coaching staff why he deserves more playing time by getting on base.

The Jayhawks welcome the Blue Jays to Hoglund ballpark and have adjusted the first pitch to 3:00 pm due to the women's basketball team making a deep run in the NIT tournament.