Note: Each day this week, White & Blue Review will take a look at the upcoming Creighton Baseball season.
The Jays battery may well be their biggest strength. Eight of the 10 pitchers return from a staff that boasted the 13th best ERA in the country, while starting catcher Carson Vitale and primary backup Scott Thornburg also return.
With that said, they’ll have to find an arm to replace the loss of senior workhorse
Jeremy Hauer, who started 14 games and threw a team-high 81.0 innings to lead the staff; his 3.78 ERA also led the team. They will count on junior starters Jonas Dufek and Greg Hellhake to take on a big chunk of those innings in 2010. Dufek started 13 games in 2009, throwing two complete games and 79.0 innings while posting a 4-7 record. Meanwhile, Hellhake started all 15 games he appeared in last year, winning five games and striking out 39 in 70.1 innings.
Brandon Koenigstein and Mike Nihsen make up the rest of the projected starting
rotation entering the season. Nihsen made seven starts a year ago, going 3-1 with a 4.95 ERA, while Koenigstein appeared in 14 games, starting three and went a perfect 5-0 with a 3.18 ERA. Of course, he also delivered Creighton’s most memorable performance of the year and endeared himself to Bluejay fans for eternity by throwing a seven-inning no-hitter against Wichita State in the MVC
Tournament.
Three of the most important pieces of the relief corps also return; Matt Patterson, Bobby Lackovic and Jack VanLeur combined to appear in 94 games last season, and all three are back for another season. VanLeur led the team in appearances
with 36, which was also the ninth most in all of college baseball, and ended the year
as the Jays’ closer, compiling six saves with a 3-4 record in 48.2 innings.
Patterson’s 2.40 ERA was the best on the staff, and he struck out 21 batters in 30 innings to help him post a a 2-0 record. Lackovic made 34 relief appearances, and his six wins out of the bullpen were best on the team. His stellar 3-to-1 strikeout to walk ratio (36-12) in 45.2 innings shows that the ERA was no fluke.
The other returning hurlers are T.J. Roemmich, Kurt Spomer, Austin Cole and Nick
Musec. Roemmich is the every-day right fielder, but helped the staff out from time to time with six appearances on the hill. Spomer made just three appearances in his freshman season, but will get the opportunity this year to have a larger role. And Cole and Musec, redshirt freshmen from a year ago, come back with four years of eligibility after sitting out last season.
Five recruits have joined the staff; JuCo transfer Gage Daniels leads that group, coming to Creighton after a year at Johnson County Community College where he had a 10-3 record with a 1.09 ERA, striking out 83 in 84 innings.
Ty Blach is one of four freshmen pitches joining the Jays. The southpaw from
Centennial, Colo., went 7-1 with 74 strikeouts in 45 innings in his senior
season for Regis Jesuit High School. Kyle King is the second of three new left-handers for the Jays. King boasted two first team all-conference selections and two team MVP picks for Bartlett High School in Bartlett, Ill.
Mark Winkelmann had a decorated career for Aldon-Hebron High, where he set 16 school records and 14 top-50 Illinois High School baseball marks. He was a four-time first team all-conference pick and was his team’s MVP three times.
John Boyle and T.C. Manning round out the 2010 staff. Boyle comes in after a successful career at Benet Academy in Lisle, Ill. He earned two all-conference picks and went 17-2 with five saves and a sub-3.00 ERA in three years with the varsity. Manning joins this year’s squad as a walk-on.
The catchers are a strong quartet of players. Carson Vitale comes into his senior season as the team’s starting backstop, after playing in 46 games and starting 40 a year ago. He hit .261 with two home runs and eight doubles, and drove in 16.
Thornburg saw more playing time than any other freshman on the team in 2009, playing in 47 games with 37 starts, as he got time at both designated hitter and
catcher. He hit five home runs and matched Vitale’s 16 RBIs in 41 fewer at-bats. Defensively, Thornburg threw out a whopping 37% of baserunners, while compiling a .994 fielding percentage.
While there are question marks on the right side of the infield and in left field, the Jays pitching staff and group of catchers are perhaps the strength of the team. Their pitching staff has depth and quality, where their two primary catchers are nice compliments of each other.