Indiana Baseball: Hoosiers Look to Keep Big Ten Lead During 4-Game Series at Ohio State

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Indiana is in first place in the Big Ten baseball standings and, all in all, the Hoosiers have had a great start to the season. But just like any college team in any college sport, the coaching never stops.

Jeff Mercer doesn't just pencil in a lineup every Friday and send his guys out to the field for the weekend. There's an enormous amount of work that goes into the games all week long, and working on specific things and improving in those areas is critical. It's also the big reason behind why the Hoosiers are on top of the standings with an 11-3 record, though Michigan and Nebraska (both 11-4) are nipping at their heels.

"If you have to teach them something during the game, it's too late by then,'' Indiana coach Jeff Mercer said. "You have to coach more in the midweek than you do any other time of the year because you actually have applicable data to working off of. That's when the biggest jumps get made in how to play the game.

"For a lot of young guys, they just don't know. I kind of joke that there are three phases to a player. First, you don't know what you don't know, then you know what you don't know and then you know what you know. They're learning, but now you have to come in and really, really coach.''

Indiana has worked a lot on hitting with runners in scoring position, and Mercer, since returning from quarantine after testing positive for COVID-19, has made that a focus. The results have been obvious.

Prior to Sunday's 5-1 loss at Michigan State in brutal weather conditions, Indiana had scored 32 runs in four games – that's eight runs per game – with a lot of that coming with two outs and/or with scratching out singles with runners in scoring position. This isn't a roster full of thumpers – Indiana has just 12 home runs so far this season; Big Ten leader Northwestern has 29 – so getting that big hit in timely situations means a lot.

"We put a great emphasis was on hitting in scoring position, and we threw a lot of sim-game stuff,'' Mercer said. "You can talk about the theory of it all you want, but until you're actually in the moment and applying what you've been taught with the stress and the anxiety, it's hard to understand.

"No one played baseball last year really, and no one's really played a lot of college baseball, so now we're actually in the moment. Coaching, so much of it is timing and the availability to learn. We can go back with video and go over it, and we can work on that specifically. That was obviously a struggle to start the season, but we've been much better with that the last three or four games.''

That will come into play during a four-game series with Ohio State (8-7) this weekend in Columbus. The series starts Friday with a 4:05 p.m. ET game, then a doubleheader on Saturday starting at 1:05 p.m. ET, with the series finale Sunday at 2:05 p.m. ET. Ohio State was picked to finish third in the Big Ten in the preseason coaches poll.

Indiana is well equipped to handle the strains of a four-game series because they've got a solid fourth starter in redshirt freshman left-hander Ty Bothwell, who will start the second game on Saturday. Tommy Sommer will start Friday, McCade Brown will pitch the first game Saturday and Gabe Bierman takes the mound on Sunday.

The Indiana pitching staff has been sensational for most of the season, posting a 2.55 team earned run average, with 153 strikeouts in 120 innings pitched. The Hoosiers have allowed just 34 earned runs on 68 hits and has limited opponents to a batting average of .162.

Those are dominant numbers. So are these: The Hoosiers are ranked second in the NCAA in hits allowed per nine innings (5.10) and WHIP (1.04), fifth in team ERA (2.55) and 11th in strikeouts per nine innings (11.5).

As good as they've been, they haven't been perfect. Across the board, the starters have all had their moments getting in trouble right out of the gate. There have been too many walks, and at times that's caused a problem.

"Pitching-wise, we have to get off to better starts,'' Mercer said. "I don't have a problem when a guy doesn't have his best stuff or has a little bit of a shaky start, but we have to be able to control a fastball. We have fastball command in the bullpen, and we need to take fastball command into the game.

"We can't walk the leadoff batter to start the game, we can't walk guys to start every inning. We have to be more competitive early in games, and they are all capable of doing that. Our pitching has been absolutely tremendous, but we can't give away free opportunities.''

Outfielder Drew Ashley will try to keep his on-base streak alive. He's reached base in 39 straight games dating back to the 2019 season.

Big Ten baseball standings

Team	Won	Lost	Pct.	GB	Streak
Indiana	11	3	.786	---	L-1
Michigan	11	4	.733	0.5	W-2
Nebraska	11	4	.733	0.5	W-6
Northwestern	9	5	.654	2	W-2
Rutgers	8	6	..571	3	W-1
Ohio State	8	7	.533	3.5	L-1
Illinois	7	8	.467	4.5	L-2
Iowa	7	8	.467	4.5	W-3
Michigan State	7	8	.467	4.5	W-1
Maryland	6	9	.400	5.5	W-1
Penn State	4	10	.286	7	L-2
Purdue	3	11	.214	8	L-1
Minnesota	3	12	.200	8.5	L-4