The 'Cats once looked promising. Then, it all came crashing down.
In the non conference portion of this year's baseball season, Northwestern finished with a record of 13-8-1. In conference play, it finished 8-22.
The 'Cats looked good early in this season -- good enough that I absolutely assumed they'd be better when conference play rolled around. I wasn't expecting a top-of-the-B1G team, but I wasn't expecting them to finish in last place either.
Northwestern had a legitimate lineup filled with solid hitters this season. Jack Lausch finished with a 1.046 .OPS to lead the team and looks like a draft-able prospect. Ryan Kucherak and Jackson Freeman clearly have talent at the dish. Nick Barron and Owen McElfatrick were nice surprises.
As a team, NU finished eighth in the conference in homers, with 70. It was also No. 13 in the conference in .OPS, which isn't great, but, again, wasn't the worst.
It was the pitching that sunk the Wildcats this season, and that's the reason they aren't even getting the opportunity to play in the Big Ten Tournament. To put it bluntly, the staff was brutal all season. There wasn't even a stretch of games where they were consistently effective.
Northwestern finished with a 7.21 team ERA, a 1.75 WHIP and just 313 Ks. For reference, this pitching staff managed to allow more earned runs (350) than the number of batters it struck out all season. That should be borderline impossible.
Ultimately, this inability to pitch has been a frustrating theme dating back to before head coach Ben Greenspan took over. But he hasn't reversed that trend even a little bit.
For the 'Cats to get where they want to go -- for them to even compete in this conference -- this cannot continue to be the case. They can't keep wasting solid talent in their lineup with an uncompetitive pitching staff.
In baseball, even at the college level, new-school analytical thinking matters. You win with power stuff and wicked breaking pitches. Northwestern needs to figure out how to a. recruit players with that natural ability and b. prioritize those things in their development process.
Because this isn't football or basketball, we know less about what's going on behind the scenes. But it's hard for me to imagine that these pitchers are being told to unleash their best stuff. Control matters, yes, but not as much when all you do is get rocked. There has to be an adjustment here.
Ultimately, this team was a casualty of its pitching, for whatever reason that may be. It could be a talent issue. It could be a coaching issue. It could be ideological failure, and that is my greatest concern.
But whatever it is, Greenspan's biggest task needs to be figuring it out. Who knows what Northwestern's team will look like next year, but if it features another exciting lineup and no distinct changes on the staff, we're looking at deja vu all over again.
