When the Northwestern baseball team was scheduled to play Valparaiso on April 8, the game was canceled due to a springtime pounding of rain and snow. When the two teams play today, the Wildcats think this time, they’ll be the ones doing the pounding.
Judging by NU’s strong work ethic and the amount of overtime the players spend fine-tuning their skills, dominating Valparaiso might not be out of reach.
After dropping three of four games at Penn State this weekend, NU (14-15, 6-8 Big Ten) is especially ready to hit Valparaiso (9-22-1) with an offensive explosion. To make up for losing their first conference series, the Cats hit the gym on Monday despite returning to Evanston in the early hours of the morning and without a scheduled practice.
In the unstructured workout, the NU players spent time improving their individual weak points — even to the point of injuring one another.
“I threw and hit in the cages, lifted, then broke (Evan Blesoff’s) nose,” sophomore Chris Hayes said. “Well, at least we think it’s broken. I was stretching, and he wasn’t looking and I got him really good.”
But Blesoff won’t let his injury prevent him from taking a trip to the mound today. Midweek, nonconference games allow NU’s relievers — including Blesoff, Hayes, Stanley Finch and Dan Pohlman — to see playing time. The pitchers especially benefit from the chance to throw against an opponent, not one another in practice.
Although Hayes is often used as a relief pitcher, NU coach Paul Stevens started him at catcher in the Cats’ most recent midweek contest against Chicago State on April 15.
“My role is always up in the air,” Hayes said. “People ask me what position I prefer, but really I just like to get out there.”
The Cats might have annihilated Chicago State 36-10, but they don’t expect to tally that high of a score against Valparaiso.
“It would have been better for our confidence to score 36 runs against Valparaiso rather than Chicago State,” Blesoff said. “Valparaiso and Chicago State are two very different teams.”
In the teams’ two outings last season, no hurler threw a complete game. During the the first contest in 2002, when NU shut out the Crusaders 5-0, six NU and three Valparaiso pitchers saw playing time.
The mound served as a revolving door again two weeks later. Another six hurlers threw for the Cats and four punched in time for the Crusaders in an 8-7 NU win.
“It’s hard to tell what the pitching situation is going to be,” Blesoff said. “Obviously, we’re not going to use our weekend starters, but I don’t know how many will be working out of the pen.”
As for the Crusaders’ pitching staff, the Cats will have to watch out for the most recent Mid-Continent Conference Pitcher-of-the-Week Todd Evans. He earned the award after allowing one unearned run in Valparaiso’s 3-1 defeat of Oral Roberts.
Even though Valparaiso doesn’t have a strong record, NU plans on treating this game like any Big Ten contest.
“When we sat down at the beginning of the season, we made a goal to win every midweek game,” Hayes said. “After losing to Penn State, there’s quite an emphasis not to blow this game off.”
Blesoff said the Cats have been pushing themselves to the limit lately because the Valparaiso game is about redemption.
“We look at a lot of midweek games as preparing for the next weekend, getting our act together if we feel we need to do so,” Blesoff said. “And we need to do so.”