Preview: Maryland baseball wraps up road trip vs. Nebraska

Photo courtesy of Chris Lyons/Maryland Athletics

Maryland baseball will continue its ten-game road trip against Nebraska in its toughest matchup yet.

Nebraska (23-11, 6-3 Big Ten) ranked No. 23 two weeks ago but fell out of the top 25 after going 1-3 last week.

The Cornhuskers are No. 19 in RPI, as opposed to Maryland’s (24-14, 5-7 Big Ten) No. 50 ranking.

Nebraska enters the weekend series ranked first in the Big Ten in ERA, sporting a 4.26. The staff is led by junior Brett Sears (1.32 ERA) and sophomore Mason McConnaughey (2.29), who rank one and two in the conference in ERA.

Sears served as the Friday starter for Nebraska in six of nine starts this season including the last four Fridays, making him the likely choice to open the weekend. 

The junior has not allowed more than two runs in a single outing. He has yet to fail to pitch fewer than five innings, and opponents enter the series batting .142 against him.

Meanwhile, McConnaughey originally started the year as a bullpen pitcher but has transitioned seamlessly to the starting rotation, going at least five innings in every contest. He holds a 2.86 ERA and started the last two Saturday matchups.

The Terps will need their offense to continue to put up runs to prevent them from dropping their fourth consecutive Big Ten series.

Maryland is also in the midst of a ten-game road trip and has gone 2-4 over its first six games. However, they enter this series on a two-game win streak, including an unorthodox win against Delaware (18-17, 6-6) on Tuesday.

Despite holding two separate seven-run leads, Maryland’s bullpen continued to struggle. But coach Matt Swope used starting pitchers Kenny Lippman and Ryan Van Buren out of the bullpen to stifle Delaware’s offense.

“We’re gonna switch the rotation up this weekend, so we knew we gonna put [Lippman] in the bullpen,” Swope said after Tuesday’s game.

After practice on Wednesday, Swope said that Logan Koester will start on Friday and doesn’t anticipate taking Joey McMannis out on Sunday, leaving Saturday’s starting slot vacant.

The Terps could fill the empty slot with Van Buren or Omar Melendez, as a bullpen day seems unlikely given some of the team’s recent struggles.

But there was a positive sign for Maryland’s bullpen when senior Trystan Sarcone was seen throwing from the mound at practice on Thursday. Sarcone has not pitched an inning since exiting the game against UMBC on April 3, and Swope did not provide a timetable for his return.

The Terps will begin game one against Nebraska on Friday at 7:05 p.m. The Terps will round out the series on Saturday at 3:02 p.m. and Sunday at 2:05 p.m.