Three Strikes: Cajuns Lead Sun Belt, Northeastern's Case
Northeastern Poised to Provide Intriguing Postseason Case
There are a couple of things to get out of the way here first. For one, Northeastern canceled its midweek game with Boston College this week due to Covid-19 protocols in the program, and it’s not clear how long that will end up sidelining the team.
Also, for our discussion today, which will get into postseason resume talk, it should be stated that Northeastern looks the part of a regional team on the field, even before you look at numbers.
It has a 3.31 team ERA with a staff that features a rotation of veteran workhorse
Kyle Murphy (2-0, 4.45) and underclassmen prospects in righthanders
Cam Schlitter (2-0, 2.10) and
Sebastian Keane (2-1, 4.91), all of whom strike out more than a batter per inning, and a deep bullpen.
The lineup features athleticism and hittability throughout, led by outfielder
Jeff Costello (.351/.464/.439), outfielder
Jared Dupere (.316/.391/.684, 7 HR), second baseman
Scott Holzwasser (.300/.457/.471, 11 SB) and outfielder
Ben Malgeri (.288/.374/.388, 11 SB).
And that level of talent should enable Northeastern to win enough games to create a very interesting postseason case come Selection Monday.
So far, things are tracking well for the Huskies. They are 14-6 and 3-0 in Colonial play. They have an RPI of 50 as of Wednesday morning, which would make them a viable, if fringy, at-large candidate if the season ended today and they weren’t the automatic bid winner.
Road wins over the likes of Wake Forest and Old Dominion will serve them well as the season goes on, and they still have two shots each at wins against Connecticut and Boston College later this season, which would help.
Dominating conference play would also be a feather in their cap and that’s very much on the table. This season, the CAA split into two divisions, North and South, with no inter-divisional regular-season games. As such, the entirety of NU’s conference slate will come against Delaware, Hofstra and Towson, opponents Northeastern will be expected to handle.
So let’s game this out. The fourth game of last weekend’s Hofstra series was rained out, so Northeastern is currently scheduled to play 23 conference games, and let’s just assume it gets all those games played.
What if Northeastern goes 20-3 in the conference, and combined with its sprinkling of midweek games, finishes the regular season with something like a 37-11 record and an RPI in the mid-40s, with its best wins being single road victories over Wake Forest and Old Dominion as part of series losses?
If that resume seems light to you, you’re not wrong, but remember 2018. That Northeastern team went 36-21 overall, 17-6 in conference play and finished the regular season with an RPI in the mid-30s, all while going 3-11 against the RPI top 50 with its best wins being single victories over Missouri and Auburn as part of series losses.
That 2018 resume is probably better than the hypothetical 2021 resume laid out here, and there are a number of differences in the resumes that are too granular for this discussion today, but it’s not light years different.
It’s also worth noting that the path to a viable at-large resume for Northeastern this season is pretty narrow and really running up the score record-wise is paramount. This is the case chiefly because the North-South alignment of the CAA also provides some downside risk. Any losses, let alone series losses, to Towson and Delaware, both of which are currently above 200 in RPI, would be tough pills to swallow.
The easiest path to the postseason for Northeastern, of course, is simply winning the conference tournament, and given that it very well might be the best team in the CAA this season, that doesn’t seem like too tall a task for this group. But if they take care of business in the regular season and end up falling short of the auto-bid, the Huskies could be poised to provide one of the most polarizing postseason cases this season.
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