Gophers vs. Illinois Friday

JohnnyGopher

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Notes from gophersports. Former Henry sibley star Phil Haig will throw for the Illini in game 1. he was a commit to the Gophers for football until Clint Brewster took his spot. he has since given up football for baseball only.

Minnesota travels to Champaign to play a three-game series against Illinois. The Golden Gophers will face the Illini on Friday, Apr. 17 at 6:05 p.m., Saturday, Apr. 18 at 3:05 p.m. and Sunday, Apr. 19 at 12:05 p.m. Minnesota’s final two games against Illinois will be live on KLBB (1220 AM) and all three games can be heard on gophersports.com. Illinois is 21-10 overall, and is tied for third in the Big Ten at 6-3. Last year, the Illini took three of four against Minnesota at Siebert Field. In the Golden Gopers’ last trip to Champaign, they won three of four at Illiniois and scored 48 runs in the final three games of the series.

• Junior Derek McCallum had a huge midweek stretch, as he went 6-for-8 with three home runs and 12 RBI in a pair of games against UW-Milwaukee and South Dakota State. Against UW-Milwaukee, McCallum went 3-for-4 with a home run, a triple, two runs and six RBI. The next day he finished 3-for-4 with two home runs, three runs and six RBI. His 12 RBI are the most by a Golden Gopher in a two-game stretch since Matt Scanlon collected 11 in a doubleheader against Michigan on Apr. 17, 1999. McCallum also became the first Minnesota player to collect three home runs in two games since Jake Elder did so Apr. 16-17, 2004.

• Minnesota’s bullpen gave up just two runs in 10 innings of work this week against UW-Milwaukee and South Dakota State. The Golden Gophers had nine straight scoreless inning out of their bullpen until the ninth inning against South Dakota State. Scott Fern and Luke Rasmussen each pitched 3.2 shutout innings out of the bullpen to pick up victories in the two games.

• Freshman Austin Lubinsky gave up just one run in 7.1 innings in two outings last week. In his first outing, Lubinsky started and gave up four hits, one run, walked one and struck out one in a start against Missouri. He left the game in the fifth after meeting the pitch count that was set for him at the beginning of the game. Against Northwestern, Lubinsky entered the game with Minnesota trailing 4-1, and left with the Golden Gophers ahead 6-4. He pitched 3.1 innings, gave up one hit, walked one and struck out one to pick up his first career win.

PROBABLE STARTERS
Minnesota Opponent
Friday RHP Chauncy Handran LHP Phil Haig, ILL
(6-1, 2.73 ERA) (3-2, 3.92 ERA)
Saturday RHP Tom Buske RHP Ben Reeser 
(5-2, 2.15 ERA) (3-0, 2.61 ERA)
Sunday RHP Seth Rosin RHP Bryan Roberts
(2-1, 4.62 ERA) (3-0, 5.89 ERA)
 

thanks for the notes Johnny!!!

Hopefully the guys will be ready to go this weekend and have some nice results to bring home with them for next weekend.
 

Gophers up 5-1 in the fourth. Kvasnicka with a solo shot and McCallum with a HR and 2 run double.
 

Scratch that, Handran has a meltdown and Decker commits an error as part of a two-run fourth and a five-run fifth that has the Illini up 8-6 in the bottom of the fifth with two out. Decker has also struck out every time up so far, not exactly a banner day.:eek:

Handran out, Lubinsky in to pitch. Hopefully Austin can clean up this mess before it gets any worse.
 

At the 7th inning stretch, gophers close part of the gap to 11-10. Hope they have a big final two innings!
 



Another day, another blown lead for the Gophers against the Illini. Buske has a no-hitter through four and leads 4-0 and is now on the hook for the loss after Illinois scores nine runs in the last three innings. Now, its 9-5 Illini. Another classic meltdown by the Gopher pitching staff. Must be taking lessons from the Twins bullpen :p:p

Not looking good for this series at all. Maybe we'll be able to salvage some pride in the second game. :mad::mad:
 

We had a 6-1 lead last night and 4-1 tonight going into the late innings and both times our starters hit a wall and the bullpen absolutley blew up. Illinois is a very offensive ballpark but this is not good, Rasmussen and Sexton both get rocked in those big innings. This is exactly what the gophers did last year and now they really are in a must win tomarrow. We have been ranked most of the year and have a great RPI but a northern team cannot afford a long losing streak or they put themselves in jeopardy of missing the tournament and a loss sunday puts us 2 1/2 games back which is a bigger deal now that we only play three each weekend.
 

there is no game on Sunday. it a doubleheader today. game 2 is underway i believe. anyone have a score update on game 2.

Game 2 - Illinois 5, Minnesota 4 T-7
 



Minnesota lead game 2.

Game 2 - Minnesota 8, Illinois 5 B-8
 


Nice to get a win to close out the series with Illinois. But to be perfectly honest, this weekend was a disappointment from many angles. Most notably, the pitching staff didn't get the job done as a group and blew leads in two games we could have or perhaps even should have won.

Standing at 23-12 and 7-4 isn't too bad, but we were lucky to get one win out of the weekend considering the performance (or lack thereof to be more precise) we received from guys on the mound. The pitching staff needs to buckle down from here on out, otherwise it's going to be very ugly down the stretch.
 

It's all about next year!

The Gophers by FAR have played the toughest schedule than any team in the Big Ten and they led the conference in pitching. That's why I'm suprised our pitching staff has struggled so much. Our offense which has struggled is really coming on strong and was not the reason why we lost this series.

I have said it all season that it's about next year. Next year this team could be as good as anyone in the country. My biggest concern is losing our two top starting pitchers after this year. TJ Oakes coming in next year and having a huge group of sophmore pitchers back will help to ease those fears. We should be a very good team next year.

Offensively we seem to always lack power. If Derek and Mike come back, we could be a good team offensive team in hitting with power and average.
 



It shouldn't get ugly down the strech because in our next 10 games we should have a chance to win all of them. Ending the season at Michigan and PSU will be tough.
 




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