Gophers baseball slipping down Big Ten standings as season winds down

Year one of the Ty McDevitt era for Gophers baseball has been a roller coaster.

They knocked off No. 7 Oregon State in the non-conference, but also lost 29-1 at home against Kansas. After starting Big Ten play off slow, they rattled off five straight conference wins, but they've now lost six of their last seven, and their chances of qualifying for the Big Ten Tournament are slipping away.

The top 12 teams in the 17-team Big Ten qualify for the end-of-season conference tournament. With two regular-season series remaining, the Gophers have an 8-16 conference record, and they sit in a tie for 15th place in the conference.

Every team in the conference has six games remaining, and Minnesota sits only two games out of 12th place, and they play two of the bottom six teams in the conference — Maryland at home, and Michigan State on the road. If the Gophers are able to win both series, it's not impossible for them to sneak into the 12th and final spot.

Gophers baseball was long considered the class of the Big Ten under legendary head coaches Dick Siebert and John Anderson, but they haven't qualified for the conference tournament since 2019. Without a crazy finish to the regular season, it looks like that streak will continue to grow.

Minnesota currently holds the worst home record in the entire conference at 1-11, and the momentum built up in the middle of the season has essentially vanished. It's not an entirely lost season. The Gophers are a young team, and four of their top five hitters, based on average, can return next season, but they currently rank second-to-last in the whole conference with a team batting average of .261 on the season.

Pitching has improved throughout the season, and four of Minnesota's top five options have eligibility remaining beyond this season. Ultimately, McDevitt's rebuild of the program might take longer than originally expected.

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