Nebraska baseball falls 5-3 to San Diego despite eighth inning rally
Nebraska baseball sought a bounce-back game on Saturday night following its season-opening loss to San Diego.
Instead, the Huskers once again failed to find any stability at the plate and hit .077 with runners in scoring position. Nebraska’s 5-3 loss drops its record to 0-2 overall.
San Diego opened the scoring after an empty Nebraska top half of the first inning. Preseason All-WCC slugger Kevin Sim crushed a two-run home run to left field and the Toreros took a 2-0 lead. Sim’s shot exited Fowler Park in the exact same spot as Sim’s solo blast in Friday night’s contest.
Josh Caron and Garrett Anglim singled in the second and third innings respectively, but the Huskers couldn’t turn those hits into runs. Nebraska’s defense remained strong through those two innings. Jace Kaminska worked a 1-2-3 second inning and escaped a two-runner jam in the third without allowing a score.
The right-hander sat San Diego down in order during the fourth and the Husker offense showed some life in the top of the fifth. With two outs, freshman Dylan Carey delivered his second hit of the season and Anglim brought Carey home with a deep single to left.
Nebraska had a chance for more trailing 2-1 in the sixth. Casey Burnham laid a bunt single down the third-base line and Max Anderson reached base for the first time this season with a base hit. What followed was a sacrifice fly, strikeout and fly out to right ending the Huskers’ threat.
Kaminska began the sixth strong with a pair of strikeouts. Then the Wichita State transfer hit Sim with a pitch and the wheels began to fall off. Sim stole second a few pitches later and advanced to third on an error by Matthews at shortstop. Austin Smith singled, driving in Sim and a subsequent walk signaled the end of Kaminska’s night.
Mason Ornelas entered the game in relief, loaded the bases with a walk but coaxed the third out of the frame from the next batter he faced.
The Toreros brought in a reliever of their own in the seventh. Freshman Aiden Gonzalez stepped in for starter Garrett Rennie who had befuddled the Husker bats striking out seven. For the second time, Nebraska began the inning with consecutive singles.
The Huskers failed to deliver once again.
Brice Matthews and Anglim struck out and Casey Burnham couldn’t provide a base hit to score a pair of runners in scoring position.
Yet despite its struggles, the Husker offense broke through in the eighth. Charlie Fischer poked a two-out single into right field setting up Caron for his first career homer. The catcher’s two-run bomb to left knotted the game at 3-3.
San Diego regained the lead in the blink of an eye.
Shay Schanaman took the hill in the bottom half of the frame and began with a strikeout. Things turned when the reliever sandwiched a groundout between two walks. The Toreros pounced with a single and capitalized on a spiked pitch to plate two more and take a 5-3 lead.
Carey started the ninth with a double to right but the next three Huskers went down on strikes and Nebraska came up short.
“You scored three runs on eleven hits. Our runners in scoring position approach was atrocious outside of maybe two swings in that game. “
–Nebraska head coach Will Bolt on the Huskers Radio Network
The Huskers replaced timely hitting with strikeouts
Nebraska struck out 12 times in the loss.
Entering the weekend, I wrote in “Around the Horn” that strikeouts would be an indicator not only of the Huskers’ success, but whether or not the offense has improved from 2022. Nebraska posted double-digit strikeouts in 20 games last season and went 5-15 in those instances. Nine Huskers struck out Friday night.
Strikeouts killed Nebraska’s offensive momentum on four separate occasions. Once in the second when Caron had reached base on a one-out single and the next two Huskers went down on strikes. A second time in the sixth when Nebraska had two aboard and Fischer struck out swinging with two on base.
The third instance occurred in the seventh after the Huskers began the inning with a pair of base hits. Nebraska’s next two batters struck out. Lastly after a Carey double to leadoff the ninth, Anglim, Matthews and Swansen were retired on strikes.
The Huskers totaled 12 strikeouts and five were looking.
Nebraska out-hit San Diego with 11 hits to the Toreros six and finished with a better batting average with two outs. The script flips with runners in scoring position. The Huskers were 1-for-13 on Saturday and are 3-for-19 in the series. Nebraska has left 18 runners on base in the first two games.
The offense is producing, it’s just not finishing and strikeouts are a glaring reason as to why.
Kaminska, Carey making solid first impressions
The Huskers have have some positives in the midst of the first two games of the season. Tonight’s outing from Kaminska and the production from Carey match the preseason discussion surrounding each player.
Kaminska turned in a solid performance in his first Nebraska start. The transfer from Wichita State went 5.2 innings allowing four hits, four earned runs and striking out four. Much like Emmett Olson the night before, Kaminska was tested by some early Torero success at the plate. He responded just as his predecessor did on Friday.
The right-hander retired 15-of-17 after allowing the Sim home run in the first including a streak of nine consecutive outs that entered the sixth. The Huskers have to feel comfortable with where their starting pitching is at based on these first two games.
Carey has been extremely productive in the early going. The Colorado freshman has opened the year hitting 4-for-8 with a double. If Nebraska can get that level of production from the bottom third of its order, the offense has some level of hope for a rebound. His double tonight was a nearly a base-running error (he just beat the tag) but Carey has been as advertised thus far.
What’s next?
The Huskers will play the second game of the series on Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m. CT. The game can be streamed on the West Coast Conference Network website and the Huskers Radio Network will carry the radio broadcast.
