IU Baseball @ Northwestern 4/16 - 4/18/21 on BTN+

[Aaron 4,294]

Bierman gives up his first hit, but we get out of it with no damage. 3-0 IU to Top 7.

[Aaron 4,294]

3-0 at stretch.

[Aaron 4,294]

Bierman still dealing and could finish what he started. Just 78 pitches through 7 with 1 hit and 1 hit batter. That's it.

3-0 IU to Bottom 8.

[Aaron 4,294]

Rutgers just came back to beat Iowa from down big, which is huge as Hawkeyes are nipping at our heels.  

[Aaron 4,294]

NW another gift. We had 1st and 2nd one outs after a walk and HPB. Than an easy double play is botched at second so we have bases loaded 1 out rather than inning being over.

[Aaron 4,294]

That leads to sac fly. So NW now up to three free runs given up. 4-0 top 8.

[Aaron 4,294]

4-0 to Bottom 8.

[Aaron 4,294]

Bierman departs as he labored in Bottom 8. Command went away as he neared 100 pitches. Inning started with a walk, then he somewhat put out the fire with a FC at first and flyout, but an infield single keeps inning alive. Great job by Espalin to smother it and keep it on infield to prevent run. 1st and 3rd 2 outs. 4-0 IU. Bothwell in to try to finish putting out this fire. 

[Aaron 4,294]

What a 3-2 pitch from Bothwell that froze the best hitter in the Big Ten! IU maintains the 4-0 lead to the 8th.

[Aaron 4,294]

4-0 to Bottom 9. Litwicki in.

[Aaron 4,294]

Litwicki owns Goosenberg their their best overall hitter when combining average and HR's. 1 out. Strikeout on 4 pitches,

[Aaron 4,294]

Another K for Litwicki. Final out.

[Aaron 4,294]

Game over. Easy grounder to end it. A Sunday walk in the park for 4-0 win to take series. Erases yesterday and successful weekend.  

[Aaron 4,294]

I always say in baseball, the winner is the team who makes the fewest mistakes. Yesterday that was NW, today it was us, with the three free runs NW gave us.

We are going to fall another game back in Big Ten, as Nebraska and Michigan will most likely complete sweeps but I expected that. They played PSU and Minnesota who are 2 of 3 worst teams in Big Ten and NW is decent mid pack so went exactly as I expected.

The good news is that Ohio State has tumbled off a cliff since beating us and is way back in mid-pack. Also, Iowa who is coming on strong was stopped by Rutgers today so we are in 3rd place by a game over Iowa and 2.5 back of first. 

This weekend happened exactly as we needed. The thing that is killing us is that OSU sweep. There was no reason not to split that and if we do, we are right there. 

Next week against Minnesota, who is absolutely the worst team in Big Ten better be a three game sweep. After that we play all the teams around us in top 4 and can make or break our season.

Last two weekends continues to show we have the pitching to beat anyone, as NW and Illinois are best offenses in conference and we shut them down for most part. The thing that worries me still is the bats. We had only moderate success these last two weekend against horrible pitching staffs. Whether we kill Minnesota or not (and we should) means nothing. I do think we can shut down the top teams in the Big Ten pitching wise without a problem. What I worry about when we face the top 4 teams starting in two weeks is a lot of 2-0, 3-1, 4-2 losses ETC. where we get good pitching but our bats are dead.

Ultimately, if this year does not go as hoped it's going to be the Ohio State weekend and a loss to Purdue that did us in. Not this one, where we did as one would expect winning two out of three.