MSU baseball: All but over

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Illinois' players and coaches talked all week about how perturbed they were watching on television as MSU celebrated the Big Ten co-championship at the end of the regular season. Saturday night was the Illini's turn to hoist a trophy, winning the conference tournament with a 9-1 victory that earned them the automatic NCAA berth and almost certainly ends the Spartans' season.

Left-hander Corey Kimes dominated MSU hitters, allowing seven hits in a 113-pitch complete game with an approach that teammate John Anderson used with success against the Spartans a night earlier -- make the nation's third-best hitting team chase pitches and put the ball in play early in the count.

But the toughest thing to watch Saturday vs. the Illini was how MSU coach Jake Boss filtered through seven pitchers, most of whom had little experience.

Redshirt freshman Chase Rihtarchik started just his fourth career game and allowed four runs in 2 2/3 innings, leaving with the bases loaded before Tim Simpson gave up the tide-turning grand slam to the next hitter, Illinois' Matt Dittman. 

Junior Simpson -- who was used briefly in MSU's first two tourney games -- yielded three runs on five hits in an inning, then freshman Zak Wilkerson allowed another run in 2 1/3 innings. Freshman Jeff Kinley tossed two scoreless before sophomore Tony Wieber moved in from right field to allow two hits and a hit batter, along with another run. Ryan Martin hit the only batter he faced with the bases loaded before fellow sophomore Joe Zwierzynski finished it off.

That's a lot of young arms to rely upon in a championship game setting. But burning both sophomore No. 3 starter Andrew Waszak (59 pitches) and freshman starter/reliever David Garner (61 pitches) in the first game win Saturday afternoon against Minnesota left Boss little choice but to juggle his pitchers in the evening game and pray for some offense that never arrived against the Illini's No. 3 starter.

So the Spartans now wait and hope they somehow get an at-large NCAA Tournament bid, something Boss believes most likely won't happen since they entered the conference tourney ranked just 80th in RPI. It pretty much means the season is over after a 36-21 record, a share of the Big Ten regular-season title and an otherwise frustrating finish to a season of baseball rejuvenation in East Lansing. 

We'll have more in Sunday's Lansing State Journal, and I'll wrap up the season in Monday's paper while returning this blog back to Rexrode for all the summer happenings.