Stryker Report: Unsteady Hands
Never mind that Nebraska’s pitching and hitting are both up-and-down as March rapidly disappears. If the Cornhuskers had a solid fielding team, they could have won their Big Ten-opening weekend series against Michigan at Haymarket Park. But they don’t, and they didn’t.
The Huskers won Friday’s opener and erased a three-run deficit to tie the Wolverines in the eight inning Saturday, but just as they looked ready to seize control, the left side of the Husker infield betrayed them.
With each passing week, there’s more evidence. This is is not the team that won the Big Ten title and made a lot of noise in the NCAA Regional last season, and the most dramatic evidence is on defense, where there are plenty of leaks to repair. Nobody expects Nebraska to quickly replace the upper class leadership which left the program, but a bit more steadiness with the glove hand would do this team a lot of good.
The Huskers (9-13) have already committed 28 errors while handling fewer than 800 chances so far in 2022. That’s nearly as many errors as they had all last season (36) in more than 1,700 chances.
Erratic fielding is the Huskers’ biggest of many problems in 2022. It’s the reason Michigan won the series and Nebraska missed a golden opportunity to rebound from a disappointing start to the 2022 season. Over the last half of March, the Big Red had a long stretch against Omaha, New Mexico State, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and Michigan. They had a chance to get well in a hurry, but instead they struggled to finish 5-4 in that homestand.
The Huskers, who are in the bottom tier of all Big Ten teams in fielding percentage, have not yet found a shortstop to replace Spencer Schwellenbach. Brice Matthews has as many errors (eight) as he has double plays. He has a lot of difficulty fielding slow grounders and transferring the ball to his throwing hand. A charitable ruling by the official scorer Sunday spared him at least one more error.
Matthews had only six errors in 130 chances last season in part-time duty. He has not improved so far during his sophomore campaign, where he has eight in just 91 chances. That sort of thing does not inspire confidence among promising freshman pitchers, of which the Huskers have several. The old line, “Just throw strikes and let your fielders help you” is not useful for the current Husker team.
Matthews was not alone Saturday. Third baseman Max Anderson was charged with an error in the ninth that opened the door for Michigan’s 8-6 win. Anderson has five errors in 64 chances this season, compared to six in 82 chances last season during his Big Ten Freshman of the Year campaign. If either Matthews or Anderson handles his chance at a weakly-hit ground ball, sophomore lefty Max Olson closes out the Wolverines and the Huskers go to the bottom of the ninth with the game tied. Given two extra outs, the Wolverines’ all-Big Ten candidate, Jimmy Obertop, hit an 0-2 pitch into the left field corner to drive home the game-winning runs.
That set up Michigan for a dominant 6-1 win on Sunday to clinch the series and good early position in the conference race. And it left Nebraska muttering about the important early-season opportunity that got away.
Box scores
Dillon Galloway photo, Nebraska Athletics