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Class of '66 Old Fart

IUBASE vs Canisius 3/15-17

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IU hosting Canisius for a 4-game weekend.  Game #1 already underway with our Hoosieers leading 18-5 in the bottom of the 8th.  Milto started and pitched 6 innings giving up 8 hits and 5 runs (4 earned); 3 K; 0 BB; 1 WP.  Braden Scott now on the mound.   Gorski 4-5; Fineman 3-5 with 5 RBI; Richardson 3-5 with 3 RBI.  Fineman and Richardson have both homered.  Saturday doubleheader to start at 12:05 and Sunday's game at noon.

Live Stats

Radio

 

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If there was ever a disappointing 18-6 win this was it. We pulled away middle of the game because we are a lot better but Milto had a bad day and we made same mistakes early we keep making. Cincy and Canisius have similar RPI's but CIncy posses high end D1 athletes while Canisius posseses low end D1 athletes.

Having worked low end D1 baseball for 3 years I can spot the difference between a high end D1 team and a low end one right away. It's little stuff but you see it in the speed in the outfield, the throwing arms and fundamentals. Our fundamentals lack and look Low D1 sometimes but we certainly have the speed and arms of high D1. Canisius posses all the low D1 qualities which they are. 

We better sweep these guys and we started well today with our "C" game but thats enough against these guys.

 

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IU wins 5-2:

The Good: Tanner Gordon was great and finally looked like a no. 2 starter.

The Bad: Offense should get more than 5 runs against this level pitching. Also rediculous play by Houston to throw the ball into left field from short trying to get final out and allowing extra run. Didn’t matter today or against this level of competition but many Big Ten games especially on Friday could be low scoring one run games and that type of stupidity could cost IU a game. Have to fix those fundmental errors and to me thats a much larger concern that the strikeouts. Its bad how much we strike out but thats part of game. Errors can be avoided and hurt way more.

No ‘Back to Indiana’ video unless we sweep and win game 2 as well.

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Yeah, I think IU's defense right now is much worse than their stats would indicate.  It would seem, from an outside perspective, that Mercer doesn't put the same value on defense that you and I would like.  I get that you can't win if you don't score, but if IU's defense doesn't improve they're going to let a lot of winnable games get away this year.   

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32 minutes ago, Iugradman said:

Fred Glass called Mercer the Brad Stevens of college baseball. Maybe that was a premature statement?

To early to say. It was a bit silly to put that out there before he has done anything but to early to know if accurate or not.

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IU winning really big in 7th in game 2. I'll provide full analysis after but Sam Crail just did something really good defensively there making a hustling sick sliding catch in foul territory rolling over with the sun in his eyes going into the shade. That's the type of D you want to see without the dumb errors 

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IU wins really easily 16-5. 

Finally a game where we did exactly what we are supposed to jumping on them early and blowing out a far inferior opponent. Got nothing bad to say and we really hit the ball well. Now let's sing as we go for the all important sweep tomorrow and against this level of competition anything less is a massive failure.

 

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Talking Hoosier Baseball did a fairly long post game interview with Coach Mercer today.

Everyone can form their own opinion but this is the first time I have heard him speak and and am fairly impressed. He clearly gets that the Strikeouts and defense are a problem and is trying to fix them. He also sounds like he knows the game better than Lemonis and from some of the stuff he says clearly values player development more which was Lemo's huge issue. Hopefully team gets better as year goes on which is preferable to last year where we started strong and faded mid year before picking it back up at very end. You can clearly tell he has come in and changed some things which team is struggling to adjust to but hopefully will soon.

Side note he said Sommer and Kaletha are out for a fair bit of time with injuries which I had not noticed really.

 

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Time to go for sweep in a few min. Since I am watching all of the game and not just bits and pieces i'll try to provide more updates as needed.

Big thing that helps me now (since last summer) is I can watch the game on my roku stick on a big screen TV through btn2go so like soccer in fall despite IU's not great in house camera I can see much better now to pick things up and provide analysis.

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First off for the mundane is it's really awkward that I know one of the umps who has called the games all weekend and broadcast has managed to pronounce his name every way but the right way. LOL

As for the game Saalfrank goes 1-2-3 with 3 k's. Saalfrank has all the tools and has thrown some huge games in his time here but never consistent. Ideally with his stuff he should be a solid no. 2 starter and he is another example of poor development by the Lemonis staff and I am hoping this staff can get most out of. In my mind he's got best arm on staff not named Milto but has never reached that potential.

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Gorski walks and steals 2nd and 3rd, Ashley walks and steals 2nd, Lloyd sac fly to right and Ashley to 3rd, Fineman robbed of a hit on a great diving catch at short, Van Pelt gets an infield single behind 2nd to score Ashley as he barely beats throw to 1st. Crail groundout to 2nd.

IU leads 2-0 doing exactly what Mercer likes playing small ball and being patient without striking out. Good start as we go to 2nd!

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IU makes 2 more mental mistakes but no harm. First Houston bobbled a ball at short that botched a double play and only got 1. Than on final out of inning with runners at 1st and 3rd Canisius tried the double steal and a bad throw allowed the runner to get in at 2nd but he over slid the bag before run scored so we tagged him out.

That's the second time this year I've seen us botch a double steal of 2nd and home defensively but get lucky because other team messed up as well. Those 2 plays in that inning will never show up on stat sheet and didn't hurt us now but are mental errors we have to stop.

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Weird top 3rd. Saalfrank strikes out side for 2nd time and has 7 K''s through 3 innings. In between though he gave up 2 walks and a single to center that plated a run and IU lead down to 3-1 going to the bottom of 3.

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Ashley ground rule double off the right field warning track, Lloyd walk, Fineman 2 run double into the left field gap, Fineman takes 3rd on wild pitch as Van Pelt walks, Crail strikes out as Van Pelt steals 2nd, Fineman scores on wild pitch as Richardson bats before hitting an RBI single through 2nd into center, Barr singles as Richardson goes to 3rd, Houston a safety squeeze but only right in front of plate so Barr goes to 2nd but Richardson cannot score, Gorski walks, Ashley grand slam into left field bullpen, Lloyd grounds out.

IU leads 11-1 after 3 and gets 8 that inning to blow this wide open. Will probably provide less frequent updates now since we have game well in hand but will post a bit more as we go on. Great to jump on this team early for 2nd straight game!  

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