This weekend, Illinois baseball is scheduled to visit the Minnesota Gophers for a three-game series. Hard as it is to believe, it the schedule may be altered due to blizzard conditions in Minnesota. As I write this in Urbana on Thursday, it is a sunny, 70 degrees.
🚨 SCHEDULE CHANGE: Friday’s game at Minnesota has been postponed. Series schedule TBA. https://t.co/3cdq9XWXU2
— Illinois Baseball (@IlliniBaseball) April 11, 2019
However, between 8 to 13 inches of snow is expected to fall up north. Friday’s game has officially been postponed. As for the rest of the series, Illinois baseball encourages us to stay tuned to @IllinoisBaseball or the Illinois baseball website for updates.
Illinois is 20-11 after losing a marathon affair against the ISU Redbirds on Tuesday night. The game went 13 innings and way into the late hours of the night.
The Illini are looking to improve on their 1-5 Big Ten record after winning five sweeps in their first six weekends in 2019.
| Minnesota Golden Gophers | |
| Siebert Field | |
| Schedule TBA |  |
Minnesota recap
Minnesota’s season has sort transpired the polar opposite the way Illini team’s has. After a lackluster 2019 start to the season losing 11 of their first 13 games, they have picked it up. Now they have entered the Big Ten season, the Gophers are 6-3 against conference teams.
Minnesota is coming off a walk-off win against North Dakota State prompted by their “Games of Thrones Night” promotion (which sounds like a lot of fun).
The Gophers’ top winning pitcher is Brett Schulze who is their setup man with a 5-0 record and a 2.66 ERA. Big Boppers for Minnesota include Jordan Kozicky (5 HR, 31 rbis) and Easton Bertrand (5 HR, 23 runs scored).
Random Ramblings
In case you missed it, the U of I Department of Intercollegiate Athletics is green-lighting beer sales for Illini sporting events for the 2019-2020 season.
Of special note…
It is possible that Illinois will offer public beer sales for the final three Big Ten baseball series at Illinois Field this spring.
The sales of beer occurred last season at Illinois Field. It was new and different and yet at the same time, the sky didn’t fall. Not surprisingly, the beer won’t be cheap ($7 for your garden-variety American beer). That’s no different than any other sporting venue on this land.
Me? I don’t attend sporting events to drink beer so I have no dog in this fight unless it affects my ability to enjoy the game.
Former Illini star Bren Spillane just hit his first homerun for the Class A Dayton Dragons in the Midwest League.
…and he made it count too!
🚀 Crushed.@BrenSpillane‘s first homer of the year was a game-tying two-run shot in the ninth last night. pic.twitter.com/uh7twwjcD8
— Illinois Baseball (@IlliniBaseball) April 10, 2019
Bren is now hitting .280 in seven games with Dayton.
Go Illini!