Tuesday, April 7, 2009

IU Pitching and Offense Falter at Louisville

By simply looking at the score (IU fell 15-1 to the Cardinals) from today's game at Louisville, it is obvious IU struggled both on the mound and at the plate. Out of the 7 hits we had for the game, 2 each came from the 8 and 9 hitters (Evan Crawford and Dylan Swift) and the other 3 came from nonstarters (Kipp Schutz, Vince Gonzalez, and Brian Lambert) in the 8th inning. Needless to say, it was a rough day at the plate for the Hoosiers.

Two players who hail from the state of Indiana came up big for Louisville against the Hoosiers. Junior Andrew Clark (New Palestine, IN) went 2 for 3 with a homerun, 4 RBIs, and 3 runs scored while freshman Ryan Wright (Fort Wayne, IN) went 4 for 5 with 3RBIs and 2 runs. As a team, the Cardinals (who were without top hitter Chris Dominquez) banged out 16 hits and walked 9 times against the Hoosier pitching.

Freshman left-hander Drew Leininger got the start on the mound for IU, and he struggled mightily in 3.1 innings of work as he gave up 9 runs on 9 hits while walking 3 and striking out 2. After Wyatt Hoff gave up only a run in 2.2 innings, Kyle Leiendecker came on in the 7th and allowed 5 Cardinals to cross the plate during his 1.2 innings pitched. He gave up 4 hits, walked 4 and hit 2.

Clearly, mid-week and bullpen pitching is still a major concern for the Hoosiers. Also, if IU hopes to have any kind of success moving forward, it is imperative they be more consistent at the plate from game to game because you simply won't win many games scoring just 1 run. Hopefully the team will get things back on track on both fronts tomorrow against Valparaiso so IU can pick up a win heading into the weekend set with Iowa. Go Hoosiers!

Next game: 4/8 (tomorrow) at 4pm ET vs. Valparaiso (10-14) at Sembower Field in Bloomington.

3 comments:

  1. We're not going to win too many games if our 1-7 hitters don't get a single hit! We can't have these games where our offense struggles and we don't put runs on the scoreboard. We should be able to manufacture at least 3 runs in each game. We've scored 2 or less 5 times this year!

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  2. BtP
    Baseball America talks about Bashore and Arnett
    (copy/paste into the browser...I don't know how to make the quicklink).

    http://www.baseballamerica.com/blog/college/?p=1026

    GO HOOSIERS!!

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  3. The problem with "manufacturing runs" is when you get down 7 after 2 innings - you no longer have the option of manufacturing runs - you have to get baserunners and extra base hits to climb back in.

    ReplyDelete