Certainly was a come back to earth weekend for the Pack. I expected it to be a rebuilding year, and that first weekend sort of raised expectations more than expected. There's not much sugar-coating 0-4 against presumed bubble teams at home, when it felt like the opponents controlled the action. Part of the excitement of the first weekend was not just the 3 wins, but only losing by 1 run in the two losses. This weekend, we lost by 2, 3, 5, and 6 runs in the four games. Both Nebraska games were essentially blowouts. So visions of being top 25 can be put to rest, but being top 75 and making the ACC tournament is certainly attainable, and a 3-6 start against this schedule does not eliminate you from NCAA contention, but it puts us on the outside of the bubble at the moment.
If you do want to sugarcoat it a bit, Pitt was #2 in the ACC last year, and we picked #4 out of 12 this year. (for reference, NCSU was picked #11 of 12). Pitt played these same teams on the same field (it was the ACC/Big10 challenge), and Pitt went 0-4 with scores of 8-0, 14-1, 8-0, 16-2. So maybe (hopefully) Nebraska and Wisconsin are better than we know. Wisconsin is 8-1. Of the 8 wins, 6 of them were by 8+ runs. Only the two wins against NC State were by less, and they only beat us by 2 and 3. Nebraska is 7-2. Nebraska and Wisconsin's only losses are to Texas Tech who is 10-0 and ranked. Nebraska and Wisconsin are a combined 15-0 against teams not named Texas Tech. So there is the sugarcoating for you. We may look back on the season and see that these two teams were just really good.
Now pushing forward, this weekend, the schedule lets up in competition level, UMBC twice (#266 last year, 0-1 this year), Murray State twice (#210 last year 4-6, but competitive against good competition this year), and Georgia Southern once (#85 last year, 9-4, but weak competition this year).
At home, this is where we really need to see the hitting start to improve and find it's stride. A NCAA tournament team would go 5-0 against that slate. A top 75 team, would be looking more at a 3-2 or 4-1 weekend. Going 2-3 or worse would indicate that we definitely have a true rebuild on our hands. Hopefully, opening with UMBC can get the bats going and get some confidence back. For what it's worth, I'm predicting a 4-1 weekend.