IU Baseball: NCAA Tournament With Short Ride to Louisville

[Hoosier Guy 7,518]

Not really surprised. They laid two massive eggs in the conference tournament. That trend had a good chance to continue

[Gahoosierfan 272]

Did Mercer's Wright State teams choke in the  post season?

[TheWatShot 13,618]

18 hours ago, Fkfootball1 said:

 

 

 

 

At least half of the IU fans in the Louisville/So Indiana Metro area have already switched to UofL or UK. Most of them for the same reason. They feel IU is trash in Athletics. And it’s getting to that point. We literally do nothing.


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Not sure why this is coming up in a baseball thread. Our baseball program has done alright for itself. We've won 3 Big Ten titles in the last 7 years, been to the tournament six times, and have sustained success under three different coaches. No 3-4 year rebuilds, no embarrassing PR, and no one telling us to "be patient."

 

I could write a book about the lifelong failure known as IU football, but I don't really bother with it anymore, having recognized the university's long-term and total inability to intelligently manage that program.

 

Men's basketball is what's really failing us. There is zero excuse for it to have been this bad for this long.

[Class of '66 Old Fart 83,782]

Well, after 4 innings, we are leading 4-3, but it ain't pretty.  Saalfrank pulled in the 4th after 71 pitches; only 37 were strikes.  He'd given up 7 hits, 3 walks and only had 2 K's.  Second day in a row, our starting pitcher didn't get the job done.  Bierman came in with two on and one out and got a pair of key groundouts from the middle of the Flames' order (the second on a 3-2 pitch with the bases loaded to the UIC cleanup man.

We did chase the UIC starter in the 3rd and his relief has already thrown 40 pitches.

 

[Class of '66 Old Fart 83,782]

End of 5 and we still lead 4-3.

[BtownBanner6 1,298]

3 run shot by Lloyd 7-3

[Class of '66 Old Fart 83,782]

BOOM!  A 3-run homer from Lloyd in the 6th and it's a 7-3 ballgame.

[Class of '66 Old Fart 83,782]

Barr leads us off in the 7th with a solo shot - lead now 8-3.

[BtownBanner6 1,298]

3 minutes ago, Class of '66 Old Fart said:

Barr leads us off in the 7th with a solo shot - lead now 8-3.

An absolute no-doubter 

[Class of '66 Old Fart 83,782]

Lloyd's 3-run homer in the 6th

 

[Class of '66 Old Fart 83,782]

End of 7 and we lead 8-3.  Bierman now at 60 pitches in relief of Saalfrank.  Had 2 men on but got a key K to get out of the inning.  Houston playing short today has made a couple of really nice defensive plays and is 1-3 with an rbi.

[Class of '66 Old Fart 83,782]

Ashley with a solo HR in the 8th and the lead is now 9-3.

[WayneFleekHoosier 47,914]

Nice


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[Class of '66 Old Fart 83,782]

Sloan starts the 8th on the mound.  Bierman gave us a good boost out of the bullpen pitchig 3 2/3 innings and only gave up 2 hits and 2 BB.

[Class of '66 Old Fart 83,782]

Sloan struggling and has the bases loaded with 1 out after walking 2 and hitting a batter.

He just hit his 2nd batter of the inning scoring a UIC run so it's 9-4 with the bases still loaded.  Sloan yanked and Sommer takes the mound with 1 out in the 8th.

Sommer strikes out the first batter he faces but walks the next batter to make it a 9-5 game but gets a called strike 3 to end the inning.

Edited June 1, 2019 by Class of '66 Old Fart

[Class of '66 Old Fart 83,782]

And we live to fight another day.  Sommer stays on the mound in the 9th and preserves a 9-5 win. 

We'll play at noon on Sunday against L'ville or Illinois St.

[Aaron 4,265]

We were not perfect but did what we do best today with home runs. Today should shut up anyone who wanted Saalfrank pitching yesterday as he was also far from good as well. However, UIC's pitching staff is pretty bad so we did what we needed to do with the long ball and avoided closing the season with an embarrassing loss. 

Obviously, assuming we throw Gordon tomorrow and he is reasonably good we should be OK if we face Illinois State again. The Redbirds have absolutely zero good pitchers besides Headrick who we saw Friday, so hopefully either we win easily or at least have a chance in a shootout. Have no idea what we do Sunday Night pitching wise have burned Bierman and Sommer already, but assuming we face Louisville lets cross that bridge if we come to it.  

[Aaron 4,265]

Ugh. Louisville offense which has been a mess all weekend got shutdown by a guy with a 5+ ERA while their ace was good but not perfect in 4-2 loss. Means we face UL where we probably meet our end unless their offense is in the toilet a third straight day which I don't see. If we somehow win that then have an excellent chance of out slugging an Ill. St team with minimal arms twice. Just don't see it happening. We were presented with same situation in Lexington two years ago and got destroyed by UK Sunday.

[NashvilleHoosier 3,667]

46 minutes ago, Aaron said:

Ugh. Louisville offense which has been a mess all weekend got shutdown by a guy with a 5+ ERA while their ace was good but not perfect in 4-2 loss. Means we face UL where we probably meet our end unless their offense is in the toilet a third straight day which I don't see. If we somehow win that then have an excellent chance of out slugging an Ill. St team with minimal arms twice. Just don't see it happening. We were presented with same situation in Lexington two years ago and got destroyed by UK Sunday.

Best case scenario.  No matter what we were going to have to beat Louisville if we were going to advance. I’d rather have to do it once, not twice. 

Edited June 1, 2019 by NashvilleHoosier

[Brass Cannon 24,222]

40 minutes ago, NashvilleHoosier said:

Best case scenario.  No matter what we were going to have to beat Louisville if we were going to advance. I’d rather have to do it once, not twice. 

This is my logic only have to get lucky once against them now