Players on the Northwestern baseball team aren’t used to beingpraised for their offense.
“Coming into every year, pitching is supposed to be our strongpoint,” senior Josh Lieberman said. “With hitting we just do whatwe can.”
After NU batted .267 last year, the team upped its average to.301 this season — which is still only good for sixth in the BigTen.
The rise in hitting comes with just three offensive startersreturning from last year.
“I think we did have glimpses of guys doing very well last year,but we just couldn’t string enough of those weeks or those at-batstogether,” coach Paul Stevens said. “I’m not overly shocked at it,but still, to hit .300 and maintain the type of schedule that we’veplayed, I am kind of proud of what they’ve accomplished.”
Two of the three returning starters, sophomore Mark Ori andsenior Dan Pohlman, are paving the way a the plate.
Ori is hitting .380 overall, an astounding increase from his.276 freshman campaign. The sophomore is leading the conference inbatting average during Big Ten play at .447.
The next closest average in conference play belongs to Pohlman,in second place with .398.
“You don’t ever expect somebody to hit .400, but I fullyexpected Mark to hit between .340 and .360, ” Stevens said. “He’san inside-out guy who has learned to pull the ball with as muchauthority as he goes the other way. He really creates a problem forpitchers, whether you go away or you go in on him.”
With an almost entirely new lineup and this kind of success,Stevens has to wonder if losing some upperclassmen at the end oflast season helped the Cats’ offensive situation.
“I think it’s all based on the individuals that you have,”Stevens said. “I think these guys have really worked hard on swingpaths, keeping their hands inside and letting the ball travel tothem. I think that they have a better understanding of the hittingconcepts than they did a year ago.”
With 460 total hits so far this season, the Cats already arewell beyond last year’s 420 mark with eight games left to play. Butanother number that has swelled since last season is sacrificebunts.
With 46 bunts so far, NU could double last year’s 31 by the endof the season. And that could be helping to put more hits on theboard.
“We have really emphasized small ball a lot, because I thinkthat’s another aspect of the game that benefits your hitters whenyou go to swing,” Stevens said. “You’re consistently tracking tothe ball when you’re bunting.”
This season NU is expected to surpass almost every one of lastyear’s offensive numbers. But Pohlman said the improvement — orreturn to normalcy — isn’t as impressive as it seems.
“This is how it is supposed to be,” Pohlman said. “The lastcouple of years have just been absolutely pitiful. This is great,and people are like, ‘Oh, wow, they’re hitting .300.’ But to be animprovement, we should be hitting .350.”
And although the team’s batting average is up, the Cats are inseventh place in the Big Ten, not good enough for a tournamentberth. The tables have turned, and now the pitching must catch upto the hitting.
“It’s still all about pitching, defense and then swinging bats,”Stevens said. “In my estimation, you can swing the bats all youwant, but you still have to do the other two things in order toshut down your opponents.”
