Series Recap: IU scrapes Series Win Despite Cold Bats
The Hoosiers were able to squeak a series win out of their home opening series against Pacific after losing the opening matchup Friday. Saturday and Sunday featured close IU wins, 3-1 and 4-2 respectively.
These were the top highlights from the 3-game series at Bart Kaufman Field:
Starting pitching
To no surprise, IU’s starting pitching has been its most consistent asset during the short season, and the Pacific series was no exception. Jonathan Stiever and Pauly Milto combined for 15.0 innings pitched, eight hits allowed, two earned runs allowed, five walks distributed and 21 batters struck out. The Hoosiers lost Stiever’s start in the ninth inning and won Milto’s.
Freshman Tommy Sommer started the series finale on Sunday and recorded 4.0 innigs pitched, allowing four hits and one earned run while striking out four batters. He didn’t get the win, but he held the Tigers down for Cam Beauchamp and Cal Krueger to finish. The freshman even drew comparisons to former IU ace Kyle Hart from senior outfielder Logan Sowers.
Offensive woes
IU hit double-digit hit totals in all four games against San Diego before coming back to Bloomington to play a mid-week matchup against Cincinnati and the series against Pacific at Bart Kaufman Field.
Somewhere between San Diego and Bloomington though, the Hoosiers’ bats disappeared, as they hit .241 as a team against the Tigers. They scored a total of 11 runs in the four games throughout the week, and totaled 20 hits in the series against Pacific. Only eight Hoosiers saw the basepaths in the series opening loss, and they stranded nine baserunners in the second game. The third game was much of the same, except IU was able to get more timely hits from players like Sowers and Luke Miller, who drove in one run with a sacrifice fly.
In each game, there was at least one different catalyst though, as Matt Lloyd recorded four hits with three doubles in the first game, Logan Kalehta and Jeremy Houston were able to get on for Sowers in the second game and Sowers added three hits on Sunday.
Logan Sowers
Sowers was moved to the third spot in the lineup on Saturday, after having been featured at the clean-up spot for most of the season. IU manager Chris Lemonis said that was to give Luke Miller, who had been hitting in the third spot, some breathing room in the sixth spot, as he had been struggling since midway through the San Diego series.
Sowers didn’t record any hits in the second game of the series, but he did record two RBIs, and he also finished off the series with a 3-for-4 performance at the plate, three doubles and and three RBIs.
“We haven’t had a lot of offensive production this week, and his couple swings helped us a lot and let us breathe a little bit,” Lemonis said.
Miller responded with a 2-for-11 series, including a double and an RBI.
Double Plays
The Hoosiers hit into six double plays in the series against Pacific — three in the first game and three in the series finale — and that excludes the near-fourth double play that Lloyd hit to the second baseman but was dropped.
Sowers said a lot of IU’s struggles with the ground balls came from Pacific’s pitchers throwing well with off-speed pitches and pitching many sinkers in the opening game.
“I’m just not a fan of bunting, especially when we can steal and it’s also one of our better power hitters,” Lemonis said, specifically about Lloyd’s at bat. “The game plays you that way sometimes. Pacific — I give them a lot of credit — they played hard all week. We had a lot of double play balls but just the Luke Miller play and the dive down the line, they just didn’t let us have anything.”
The Hoosiers pushed their record to 11-4 overall after the series and will host Western Illinois on Tuesday and Wednesday before welcoming Northern Illinois to town next weekend.
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