Chasing the Big Ten Baseball Championship

[sports fan]

Big Ten baseball is entering the final two weeks of the regular season.  It's that time of year when the games are both exciting and nerve-wracking!  Let's set the stage and get right to it. I have separated the contenders from the pretenders.  The top five teams, their record and their remaining games.

 

1. Iowa            21-6     home:  Oregon

2. UCLA          17-7     home:  Northwestern     road:  Illinois

3. Oregon        16-8     home:  Washington       road:  Iowa

4. USC            16-8     home:  Michigan State   road:  Washington

5. Washington 15-9     home:  USC                   road:  Oregon

 

I have listed the starting pitchers for Oregon and our opponents, Washington and Iowa.  This is based on a minimum of eight starts.  It shows win-loss record, innings pitched, walks, strike outs and era.

                                             Won     Lost     IP          BB     K      ERA

 

Grayson Grinsell             7          2       74.2      24      77    2.77

Jason Reitz                     3          0       46.2      23      50    3.66

Collin Clark                     4          2       59.1       19     54     4.10

Will Sanford                    2          2       38.0       39     42      6.39

 

Washington Huskies

Max Banks                     6          2        56.2       22     52     3.49

Jackson Thomas            4          3        57.1       23     43     3.92

Tommy Brandenburg      3          4        46.1       30     31     4.66

Justin Tims                     1          4        40.1       12      35     5.13

 

Iowa Hawkeyes

Cade Obermueller          4          2        68.0       26      94     2.51

Reece Beauter                6          0       60.1       20      66      3.13

Aaron Savary                  7          0       67.0       27      74      3.36

 

The Ducks are currently the # 13 seed to host a regional.  They would host TCU, Cal Poly and Fairfield.  They have  a mathematical chance to win the Big Ten conference but would have to sweep both the Huskies and Hawkeyes and also hope for UCLA to lose. 
 

Oregon holds the tie-breaker over both UCLA (2-1) and USC (3-0)  They need to win twice against Washington so they have that tie-breaker against them in case of the same record at the end of the season.  And finally teams that are on the bubble.

 

Last four in:      Kansas State, Kentucky, IOWA, Xavier

First four out:    U.T. Rio Grande Valley, Western Kentucky, MICHIGAN, Notre Dame

Four to watch:  Virginia, Virginia Tech, Kennesaw State, WASHINGTON

 

A final thought.  Iowa hosts little brother this week-end.  Who are we pulling for?  It has to be Bevis.  If they win, it helps the Ducks strength of schedule.  And if the Hawkeyes are beaten, would they be demoralized so much that they wouldn't have any fight left in them when they play Oregon?

 

There's going to be a lot of scoreboard watching this week-end!  Go Ducks!

 

[Charles Fischer]

I am running into an appointment and can discuss further later, but I will say that (Will) Sanford is no longer a starter, as he lost that Sunday starting position to Jason Reitz, and in the mid-week games- he did not start either game this week, and did not even pitch.

 

[30Duck]

On 5/8/2025 at 10:53 AM, sports fan said:

It has to be Bevis.  If they win, it helps the Ducks strength of schedule.  And if the Hawkeyes are beaten, would they be demoralized so much that they wouldn't have any fight left in them when they play Oregon?

It would definitely help the Ducks' SOS if Beavis won, not sure if it would have a demoralizing effect on Iowa...it could fire them up! Clearly, less than 2 of 3 against the Mutts is unacceptable, and if UCLA were to lose a couple, that would be fine. 

[spartan2785]

I'm still hopeful they can find a way to get into the top 8 and get a super regional, I'm sure the team is kicking themselves for some of the losses to Ohio St., Portland, and some others.  

 

I'm more interested in where the team can finish in the RPI than I am getting a conference crown, the goal should be first and foremost getting to Omaha.

Edited Thursday at 09:03 PM by spartan2785

[30Duck]

On 5/8/2025 at 2:02 PM, spartan2785 said:

I'm more interested in where the team can finish in the RPI than I am getting a conference crown, the goal should be first and foremost getting to Omaha.

Looks like all of those will be accomplished by winning. 

[Charles Fischer]

I agree with you all about Beavis doing well this weekend to further boost the Ducks RPI, and respect for west coast baseball.  I will say that I am impressed with the ERAs of Iowa's staff, but the knock was that they had not played many teams with a winning record. And the Bastard-Huskies did take two games off of the Hawkeyes this last weekend.

 

Thanks for posting that, as it makes watching the results that much more interesting. While it is very hard--if Oregon could sweep....

 

Coach Hawk has turned the pitching staff around, and the emergence

of Julian Hernandez is one I never thought would happen.

 

[Jon Joseph]

 

Is the B1G Baseball Tourney a single-loss and your out format like the Softball Tournament? 

 

If this is the case, why bother? Why risk regular-season success and possibly ding the NCAA tourney seeding?

 

As I noted in the Softball post, Fox and Friends would not have offered less money if Softball and Baseball did not have a conference postseason tournament.