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Minnesota Baseball: Road To Omaha, the Texas A&M Regional

Gopher's pitcher Toby Anderson
Gopher's pitcher Toby Anderson
Brent Fields

The Gophers earned a 2-seed in the NCAA Baseball Tournament which is pitting them against the ACC's Wake Forest Deamon Deacon's and potentially a matchup with the tournament's overall 4-seeded Texas A&M Aggies.

The Aggies would no doubt have been in the Tournament but earned their birth by beating #1 Florida in the SEC Title game to earn the conference auto-bid.  They are a very good team in all three phases managing to post a 3.14 ERA in the SEC while also scoring 7.2 runs per game.

Minnesota was knocked out early in the B1G Tourney (with extenuating circumstances contributing to their late-season struggles) but still managed an at-large bid.  Their .323 batting average is 4th best in all of college baseball.

Wake Forest was one of 10 ACC teams to get into the Tournament and is making their first appearance since 2007.  Of the four teams here they are the weakest hitting team, worst defense and gives up plenty of runs per game.  Comparing these raw stats can be very misleading but those are the numbers after nearly 60 games.

And finally Binghamton won the America East tournament to get in and they get to face the Aggies.

Blogger So Dear has a nice capsule on each team if you want to their profiles here.

The Teams at a Glance

OFFENSE

PITCHING / DEFENSE

Key Players for Each Team

A list of some of the key position players and pitchers for each team with the basic stats.

Texas A&M
3B Boomer White SEC PlOY .395 BA 42 RBI 4 HR
2B Ryne Birk 1st Team SEC .318A 41RBI 7HR
SS Austin Homan 1st Team B1G .360 BA 22 RBI 1 HR
OF JB Moss - .322 BA 42 RBI 5 HR 16 SB
SP Brigham Hill - 1.88 ERA 8-1 87 Ks
RP Mark Ecker 2nd Team SEC 0.43 ERA 47 Ks 6 Saves
Minnesota
DH/SP Matt Fielder B1G PlOY .377 BA 35 RBI 7 HR 13 SB
C Austin Athmann 1st Team B1G .367 BA 39 RBI 11 HR
2B Connnor Schaefbauer 1st Team B1G .316 BA 36 RBI 5 HR
OF Dan Motl 2nd Team B1G .338 BA 30 RBI 3 HR
2B Micah Coffey 2nd Team B1G .332 BA 39 RBO 7 HR
SP Dalton Sawyer 2nd Team B1G 3.15 ERA 7-6 107 Ks
Wake Forest
3B Will Craig 1st Team ACC .392 BA 62 RBI 15 HR
2B Nate Mondou 1st Team ACC .303 BA 34 RBI 3 HR
OF Stuart Fairchild 2nd Team ACC .303 BA 47 RBI 5 HR 14 SB
1B Gavin Sheets 3rd Team ACC .323 BA 43 RBI 9 HR
SP Parker Dunshee 3rd Team ACC 3.27 ERA 9-5 91 Ks
SP John McCarren - 3.74 ERA 7-3 40 Ks
Binghampton
OF CJ Krowiak 1st Team AE .322 BA 27 RBI 0 HR 16 SB
2B Reed Gamache 1st Team AE .367 BA 46 RBI 7 HR
IF Eddie Posavec 1st Team AE .316 BA 23 RBI 0 HR
1B Brendan Skidmore 2nd Team AE .315 BA 42 RBI 9 HR
SP Mike Bunal AE PiOY 3.45 ERA 8-3 84 Ks
RP Rob Hardy 1st Team AE 3.58 ERA 7 Saves 42 Ks

Very little commentary here, just giving the information and some key players to watch.