The Nebraska baseball team is hoping it can make yet another run at a Big Ten Title and then a charge into the postseason in 2019. If they are going to do that, they are going to need to make sure the talent they have amassed is playing at a high level more often than not. So far so good on that end, as the Huskers have taken two of the first three games of the season from UC Riverside.

Nebraska baseball doing it with bats

The Huskers opened the season with a 21-6 victory on Friday night. In that game, they had started off down 5-3 before the offense caught fire and blew Riverside away.

Had the team not fallen behind 7-1 in the opener of Saturday's game, they might be 3-0 so far this year.

That's because even when they fell behind big in the early innings, they managed to explode at the plate and almost stormed all the way back, losing just 10-9. The hot-hitting was especially evident in the fact that every single Husker who had a plate appearance managed at least one hit. All but three players in the lineup had two hits.

In the second game of the doubleheader, a 10-6 win for the Huskers, the offensive success wasn't quite so spread out. Instead, Jaxson Hallmark was the man who put the Cornhuskers on his back and led them to the victory. Hallmark had three hits, and a double.

He also had four RBI. Those RBI were the difference in making sure the Nebraska baseball team started the year off 2-1 instead of 1-2.

That would have been frustrating indeed considering the Huskers are coming off a rather disappointing season a year ago.

UC Riverside is not a particularly good team either. They were just 19-33 a year ago. It was important that the Huskers left Riverside with at least a split on the road to open the year against a below-mediocre California team. The offense managed to clinch that much.

Husker pitching staff presents a problem

While the start for the offense has been fantastic, the pitching staff has struggled out of the game.

In three games, the pitching staff has allowed 6, 10, and 6 runs. Some of that is due to the fact that the rotation has not really been set. Some of that is due to a starting staff that has simply underachieved.

With this being a four-game set that will conclude on Sunday, it will be interesting to see just how well the pitcher for the final game in the series can hold up and whether or no the staff can fix what ails it this weekend and actually be a force that can help the Nebraska baseball team put together a good 2019 season.
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