Gavin Blachowicz added an exclamation point to Nebraska baseball’s three-game weekend sweep of Michigan State at Haymarket Park on a sunny Sunday afternoon.
The sophomore right-hander pitched a seven-inning, 10-run rule complete game, allowing three hits and one walk while striking out a career-high 11 in the 12-2 victory. After allowing a solo home run to the game’s second batter and a walk to lead off the second, he retired 12 in a row.
It was a big bounce-back from Blachowicz’s last start against seventh-ranked Auburn. He allowed five runs, only one of them earned, on four hits and two walks in two innings.
“Blachowicz, he’s probably pitched the best of all the starters to this point … didn’t go his way last week and he didn’t really just sit around and sulk,” Coach Will Bolt said.
He “just kind of came out and said, ‘Here’s my best stuff.’”
Not that Ty Horn and Carson Jasa, Nebraska’s starters in the first two games of the series, weren’t impressive. Horn also pitched seven innings, allowing five hits and one run, in Friday’s 5-4 victory, a game delayed two hours by weather. Horn would’ve earned the victory if closer Kevin Mannell hadn’t given up a three-run home run in the top of the ninth to tie the score at 4.
Case Sanderson hit a two-out home run in the bottom of the 10th for the win.
Jasa pitched five innings in Saturday’s 3-1 victory, allowing four hits and one run, walking six and striking out nine for his second win in three decisions. The Spartans scored first on a bases-loaded walk in the fourth, but Nebraska responded with a run in the bottom of the fourth on a Will Jesske RBI single. The Huskers took the lead in the fifth on an error and Jett Buck homered in the seventh.
Nebraska scored five runs in the bottom of the first Sunday and never looked back, adding at least one run in all six innings, the 12th on a pair of errors in the bottom of the sixth. Dylan Carey was 3-for-4 Sunday, with two home runs and four runs-batted-in. Sanderson was 2-for-4, with a three-run double in the bottom of the first. Preston Freeman, the designated hitter, added a two-run home run.
Prior to Sanderson’s double, Carey loaded the bases with a bunt single. That surprise bunt might’ve been Carey’s best hit of the day, according to Bolt.
Carey’s two home runs and four RBIs increased his team-leading totals to five and 23. Even though he was 0-for-9 in the first two weekend games, he still leads the team with a .456 batting average.
Over the weekend, the Huskers showed “we can win in a lot of different ways,” Bolt said.
“Obviously, we weren’t real good yesterday. Credit Michigan State … challenged the group to just trust what they’re doing and take aggressive, committed swings. We did that (Sunday), and I guess the thing we did a great job of is the offense just didn’t stop in the lineup, and there were some different guys in there, that obviously … contributed too.”
He was referring to Freeman and Drew Grego, who stepped in for Jesske after he was removed from Saturday’s game, following the RBI single, for leg issues. He had just come back from a hamstring problem. Grego was 2-for-4 with an RBI and a stolen base.
Nebraska had 11 hits Sunday, eight Saturday and 13 Friday.
Carey remains one double from tying Bolt for the Huskers’ career record, 56. “Right as we were taking the team picture (post-game), I said, ‘You keep hitting ‘em over the fence, you’re not going to hit doubles,’” Bolt said, referring to Carey’s two home runs.
Next up for the 10-5 Huskers are four nonconference games at Haymarket Park, Wednesday night against North Dakota State and a weekend series against Maine.
Michigan State drops to 3-11.
