Fresh off a 1-2 trip to Champaign, Indiana baseball returned to Bart Kaufman Field on Tuesday for its final home mid-week matchup. The foe, the Indiana State Sycamores. A tale of two halves for the Hoosiers and Sycamores ended in a victory for the visitors 7-5.
A windy but beautiful night lit up the Bart for this in-state matchup. One of the questions I had before entering the ballpark Tuesday was if this series was considered a rivalry or not. I leaned toward no, more than yes, but the Sycamores certainly played as such.
ISU settled in after four rough innings and took the game to IU in an inspiring effort that the Hoosiers simply did not match. Indiana State played like it wanted the game more.
What started out as a bullpen day or pitching chaos, however you’d like to call it, worked in the aforementioned four innings, holding the Sycamores scoreless. Jackson Yarberry and Deron Swanson were great, only giving up two hits in their combined three innings of work, but the top of the fifth saw the flood gates open with four runs on five hits all charged to Ryan Rushing.
Indiana showed a valiant effort with a two-run ninth inning with a home run by Tyler Cerny and an RBI double by Tyler DeMartino to make it 7-5, but it was too little too late.
A silver lining for Indiana on Tuesday came in the form of Devin Taylor, crushing his 47th career home run in the sixth inning to tie the program's all-time home run record.
“They didn’t give us freebies, we gave them some freebies, and then they were able to find some holes and execute, and they did a good job with it,” head coach Jeff Mercer said.
Mercer certainly has a point. Indiana let a lot of mistakes come their way, and those mistakes got the best of them. Mistakes like walks, poor ground ball fielding and miscommunications extended innings. What didn’t help Indiana was around the time those errors occurred, the Sycamores were too familiar with the Hoosiers’ approach with their pitching. That caused ISU to pounce and cash in those runs.
Questions were raised on if the Hoosiers took their foot off the gas in the back end of the game, Mercer shot that claim down.
“Sometimes the game works that way, when you don’t necessarily get hit that hard but it works against you,” Mercer said. “When you don’t get free bases and the balls you put in play aren’t as firm as you would like them to be, it's gonna be a tougher day.”
In baseball, losses will happen. Home losses will happen. It’s a long season. But the manner of the loss is worrisome for Indiana — the abrupt ease off the gas and how Indiana State juiced the bases many times throughout the back stretch of the game.
Indiana will return to action Friday through Sunday against the Maryland Terrapins at Bart Kaufman Field.
