Xavier Baseball 2023

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Xville

Would they have a chance at an at large if they don’t win the conference tourney?

---

Winning the Big East regular season crown would be a huge ace in the hole on their profile. Having a nice road record will help, but their record against Q1 is going to be a minus.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Masterofreality

It seems as if Billy lined up his pitching to be the best rotation for the Big East games. I know they need games to stay sharp between weekends, but I’m not a fan of sorta big Non Con games after the League season starts. I think they really don’t help, but I could be wrong.

---

Xavier is in a much better position to win the conference tournament this year; the starting pitching is much improved. Depending on the matchups in the opening round, they have two aces in Ethan Bosacker (RHP) and Brent Alazaus (LHP). They are both capable of long outings which is huge in a conference tournament setting. Luke Hoskins has evolved into a nice #3 starter and already has wins in the bag against teams like Creighton and St. John's (along with Ohio State in the noncon). Luke Bell is the #4 starter that can go long if need be.

UConn has the best overall offensive lineup in the Big East, but their pitching has been very questionable of late. They've got a couple of studs in their bullpen, but they're in trouble if they have to burn them early in the tournament.

Seton Hall is the one team I get nervous about matching up with, but they are not unbeatable.

And on another side note, the Big East Tournament will continue to be played at Prasco Park through 2028. Thought they might play a season or two in Hartford, but not happening.

3-2 win for Xavier in the opener against Georgetown; the Musketeers are tied for 1st for a few hours until the UConn-Creighton game. That game will be at 7 PM on FS1, so X could potentially be in 1st place in the Big East at the end of the day.

Creighton up 6-0 thru 5. Let’s go Jays!

Creighton hangs on to beat UConn 7-6!
FIRST PLACE BABY!!

Barely being the key word.

Now it's all in Xavier's hands to wrap up the regular season crown. Could be as early as tomorrow with a Xavier win and a Creighton win.

Today sucked.
11-5 loss. Need help from Creighton after that mess.

Creighton will be motivated to help themselves - if they lose both games against UConn and Georgetown wins another game, then the Hoyas get the 4th and final spot in the BE Tournament. Now if Creighton wins another game against UConn, then we're back to seeing Xavier playing for a chance to win the BE regular season title tomorrow.

I definitely think we can pencil in Alazaus as the #1 pitcher for the BE Tournament next week. If Luke Hoskins has a great outing tomorrow, he might have a case for being the #2 starter next week.

If posters haven't already done so, I would highly recommend setting up a FloSports account to watch tomorrow's game as well as the Big East Tournament next week. Tonight's UConn-Creighton game will also be streamed on FloSports.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by X-band '01

If posters haven't already done so, I would highly recommend setting up a FloSports account to watch tomorrow's game as well as the Big East Tournament next week. Tonight's UConn-Creighton game will also be streamed on FloSports.

---

For free or pay?
I’m not paying for FloSports. I pay enough for content already- especially $12 for this dumpster fire site! ;-)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by X-band '01

Creighton will be motivated to help themselves - if they lose both games against UConn and Georgetown wins another game, then the Hoyas get the 4th and final spot in the BE Tournament..

---

You’d a think WE would have been motivated today…

It's $12.50/month, unless you have an .edu email address (in which case it would be $7/month).

Would have been nice to get a discount as a season ticket holder for baseball.

And UConn wins 6-3.

Now Xavier has to win tomorrow and hope Creighton wins as well to get the #1 seed. The kicker here is that 2 Creighton players were ejected and will miss tomorrow's game per Big East rules. Their fans and skipper were livid at the strike zone late in the game when their bullpen went up in smoke.

tied up in sixth. blue jays losing 8-0 in sixth.

GTown wins. Creighton loses.
UConn plays GTown. X plays Seton Hall at Prasco.

Literally a game of inches. X had the bases loaded in the 9th and 1 but hit into a game-ending double play. Had the Hoyas played the infield in, they would have been SOL.

Was nearly a full house at Hayden today with the Gtown fans making the weekend (and now 2-week) trip.

X takes the WIN! 6-5 over Seton Hall!
Plays UConn in winners bracket at 6:30 tomorrow night!

Let's go!!!!

Georgetown blew a golden opportunity today to advance to the winners' bracket; I arrived for the bottom of the 8th in their game against UConn and they failed TWICE to cover first base on soft ground balls hit to the first baseman (who was not in position to touch the bag).

As for Xavier's game tonight, Alazaus saved most of the bullpen by going 8.1 innings on 109 pitches. Jack Housinger had 3 doubles and drew an intentional walk to lead the offense.

Presumably Bosacker tomorrow night?

There's an outside chance they could go straight to Luke Hoskins; he's really come on strong at the end of the year and there has been some inconsistency out of Bosacker in his last 4 starts (his start against Seton Hall got short-circuited by a bad hammy). I still think Bosacker gets the call tomorrow, though.

BTW, there were 3 Xavier players named 1st-team All-Big East (SP Brent Alazaus, LF Andrew Walker and C Matthew DePrey) and 5 players named to the 2nd team (SP Ethan Bosacker, RP Justin Loer, 1B Matthew McCormick, 2B Jared Cushing and 3B Grant Stephenson).

How did Matt McCormick not make first team??
Dude rakes!!!

I mean, .310 average , .990 OPS, 13 homers.
That’s all star quality, right??

First teamer at 1B is Ben Huber from UConn:

61-184 (.332), 19 2b, 14 HR, 56 RBI. Slash of .427/.663/1.090

No shame losing out to Huber.

I guess not! Wow!!

Georgetown knocks out Seton Hall and will play loser of UConn Xavier tomorrow.

Up 8-2, bottom of the 6th.

Muskies win 10-2 !

LETS F-ing GO!!!!!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by GoMuskies

First teamer at 1B is Ben Huber from UConn:

61-184 (.332), 19 2b, 14 HR, 56 RBI. Slash of .427/.663/1.090

No shame losing out to Huber.

---

White Rhino (as UConn fans call him) was very quiet tonight.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Masterofreality

LETS F-ing GO!!!!!

---

One more win to a Big East title. Pitching is ready to go with Luke Hoskins now in line for the 2:30 game and Luke Bell should they need the 6:00 game on Saturday.

Man did UConn kill themselves with walks. Xavier made them pay just about every time early on and burned their bullpen in the process.

Also looking at the attendance for the first 2 nights - Xavier/Seton Hall drew 4,010 fans and Xavier/UConn drew 4,824. That's pretty close to capacity for Prasco Park; think they'll easily get to 5K for Championship Saturday.

Tomorrow will be a different story as Xavier awaits the winner of Georgetown/UConn in the 5 PM game.

Winners bracket feels so good

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by X-band '01

One more win to a Big East title. Pitching is ready to go with Luke Hoskins now in line for the 2:30 game and Luke Bell should they need the 6:00 game on Saturday.
.

---

I don’t know, man. A 4.63 ERA for Hoskins and a 7.00 plus run ERA for Bell doesn’t make me very comfortable. Especially how UConn can mash.
That game (trying to stay positive about 1 win only) might be a 13-12 slugfest.

Clay Schwaner looked like he was struggling early in the bottom of the 9th as well, but UConn was foolish enough to try to steal off of him and ended up short-circuiting any chance they had of putting together a rally. If you're talking about the top two guys in the bullpen, Justin Loer only faced 2 batters on Wednesday and Jonathan Kelly faced 1 batter last night. They are ready in case either Hoskins or Bell has to leave the game early.

And as for UConn, keep in mind they were fortunate to get by Georgetown in their opener. They can rake but their pitching has a lot of question marks right now. Their best pitcher from last year is unavailable due to injury and even last night a reliever had to leave the game in the midst of a 3-0 count. They are more than capable of winning 3 straight games but it's not going to be easy.

I just have a feeling that this will be a “bullpen game” not named a bullpen game.

Last night COULD have been a bullpen game - Hoskins was getting a little "just in case" work in from the 2nd through the 4th inning; Jonathan Kelly was keeping warm from the 5th inning on until he was finally called in the bottom of the 8th.

That said, the odds of Hoskins at least getting into the 5th or 6th inning are a lot higher than Luke Bell; he's been more relegated to weekday starter of late. Would love to see Georgetown pull the upset today; I can't imagine they have pitching depth to get 3 wins in 2 days.

At this point we can probably rule out Georgetown advancing to the championship tomorrow. UConn's opened a six-pack on the Hoyas' pitching staff.

"Xavier all of a sudden is now on the right side of the bubble as a projected three-seed and while a Big East championship would clinch an NCAA Tournament berth for the Musketeers, they can feel pretty good about their resume thanks to their 36 wins, top-50 RPI and a non-conference strength of schedule of 57."

- Baseball America

I would leave nothing to chance tomorrow. I just feel fortunate that UConn used their one-time ace against Georgetown instead of against Xavier.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Masterofreality

I just have a feeling that this will be a “bullpen game” not named a bullpen game.

---

Unfortunately Xavier’s pitching is proving out my fears. 3 pitchers. Down 5-3 after 6.
C’mon bats, get hot.