Baseball is the greatest game in the world and deserves the best you can give it.
-Babe Ruth
After a long winter, it’s so exciting that Illinois baseball is almost here! This weekend, Illinois baseball begins their 2024 season.
Illinois will be participating in the Wake Forest Tournament in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Beginning Friday, they will be playing four games against three different teams including a particularly tough host team.
Here is this weekend’s lineup. Call it a ‘Wake Forest Sandwich’.
Coming off a 21-34 season in 2023, the Zips have lost their big bopper Jack Firestone who produced 17 of Akron’s 50 homeruns last year.
Oh boy, Coach Hartleb wants to get the troops hardened in quickest way possible. Why not play the top team in the nation?
The Deacs ended last year with a formidable 54-12 record and a #3 spot in the college rankings. This pre-season, they top all college teams for a good reason. They outscored their opponents over a 2-1 margin in 2023.
An Illini win here would be huge. Some Illinois fans might remember our LSU weekend.
A member of the Atlantic 10, Fordham had a streaky 2023 season. Unfortunately for them, the loss streaks outweighed the wins with an overall 19-36 record.
The Rams have power plus certain hurlers might be ready to step up in 2024.
Random Ramblings
There’s no word yet on a pitching rotation for the weekend. I have my guesses but sometimes Coach Hartleb throws me a curveball. He sometimes uses the non-conference season as a good chance to test the new guys. And we have plenty of new guys… both freshmen and transfers.
Still, when it comes to Saturday’s matchup with #1 Wake Forest, I wonder if the Illini would pull out all the stops.
Time will tell.
Going into the 2024 season, three Illini have gotten accolades. Pitchers Jack Crowder and Logan Tabeling and outfielder Ryan Moerman have landed on the Big Ten Players to Watch List.
Crowder and Tabeling are seniors and Moerman is a junior.
By now, the team is already on their way to North Carolina. The weather forecast shows partly cloudy for most of the weekend but high temps in the 50s. That’s decent enough weather for our Illini to score some runs.
Go Illini!