My Two Cents: Hoosiers Rolled the Dice and Lost, Now Enter Danger Zone
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – They say that hindsight is 20/20, and I've always believed that to be true. But I've also never been one to criticize sports decisions after the fact unless I had a better plan BEFORE it happened.
I've been doing this baseball writing stuff a long time, ever since David slayed Goliath with a four-seam fastball up and in that had great velo and spin rate. Baseball is the ultimate second-guessing sport, and I do my best to, you know, not be that guy. No cheap shots from me.
Every baseball game is filled with dozens of decisions, all ripe for criticism in one form or another. It's true at any level, from the big leagues on down.
It's certainly the case in college baseball, too, especially when there's a lot on the line – like a Big Ten championship and a potential bid to the NCAA Tournament.
Which brings us to our current debate. Last week there were several conversations with baseball people young and old, some intimately familiar with Indiana's baseball program and some not. There were two weeks left in the regular season, eight games to go, and then the NCAA Tournament on the horizon.
After Indiana lost two of three at Michigan to fall out of first place, the most concerning bit of news for me was that Tommy Sommer, Indiana's Friday starter all year long, left the Michigan game in the third with a split fingernail and the subsequent blisters that followed. There were lots of stories told, including some of my old-school remedies for blisters, like soaking your fingers in pickle juice.
Yeah, like I said, I'm old.
But the Sommer injury raised major red flags for me when it came time to figure out Indiana's pitching rotation going forward. I wanted to talk about working backward, and then figuring it out from there. For the past month, McCade Brown and Gabe Bierman, the Saturday and Sunday starters, have been two of the most dominant pitchers in all of college baseball.
So, I wondered, was it time to move them both up a day in the final two weeks of the season, so they could both pitch against league-leading Nebraska this weekend and be ready to pitch the first two games of a double-elimination NCAA regional?
And then when Sommer left the game early last Friday at Michigan, I was SURE that it was the right thing to do.
It was nothing against Tommy Sommer at all. He was just as dominant as well in his last start before Michigan, a big win over Rutgers, and injuries are part of the game. His services as a starter would still be critical, just on a different day – and with more rest and time to heal.
And then came the finger injury, and all that went into this week. Indiana coach Jeff Mercer told us on Tuesday after the 3-2 extra-inning loss to Illinois that Sommer was feeling good, that the nail was filed down and he felt good. He was playing catch and felt fine.
So instead of my idea of moving Brown and Bierman up a day, and sliding Sommer back to Sunday or Monday to give that finger more time to heal, Mercer and pitching coach Justin Parker instead decided to roll the dice and keep the same pitching rotation.
And it blew up in their face.
Sommer, who pitched a perfect first inning, got roughed up in the second, when it was clear he was struggling with his control. He walked two batters and gave up three hits, with Nebraska scoring four runs.
In the third, he struck out the first batter and then walked the second. And as soon as he started grabbing his finger, Mercer was quick to pop out of the dugout.
"Tommy was fine all week, said he felt fine, and Justin said he probably threw his best bullpen of the year prior to the game and said he felt good,'' Mercer said. "I kind of saw him earlier in that inning. He walked a guy and was holding his finger. That's when I walked out and talked to the umpire, that my guy had a finger and blister issue in the past and could I go out and check on him.
"Tommy said the finger was bothering him. I asked him, 'can you go?' He said, 'yeah, I can go.' I said, OK let's try one more guy and kind of go batter to batter, because you just don't want to go to pen unless you absolutely have to.''
So Mercer left him out there and three pitches later, Max Anderson hit a two-run homer to make it 6-3. Indiana eventually lost 8-5.
Mercer defended the decision to pitch Sommer in his usual spot.
"It wasn't like it was bothering him all week. It didn't bother him in the bullpen and obviously we wouldn't have put him in there if he wasn't good to go,'' Mercer said. "He felt like he was good to go. It was a bit of an unfortunate situation, a bit uncontrollable and it just got away from us before we could get him out of there.
"It was more like the blister underneath, the finger was cracked and you could see it. They put some glue on it to hold it all in place, but his finger had just cracked and the blister had split open.''
Mercer and Parker did their due diligence all week and felt like Sommer was good to go. So that decision, which is their decision to make, was one they had to live with. My thought was wait a few days, but it could have split open again just as easily on Sunday or Monday. Second-guessing with nothing at risk is easy.
There's also this flaw to my logic, that pitching Brown and Bierman on five day's rest instead of six might be rushing them, too, because they've both had heavy work loads lately. Especially Bierman, who is averaging 112 pitches per outing the past three weeks.
Those guys are gamers, though, and I thought they would have been fine. There's no way of knowing now, of course, but Brown will pitch Saturday night now and Bierman will go Sunday against Ohio State, like they have all year.
I just felt like the two Nebraska games were too important to not fire your best weapons. Mercer and Parker thought otherwise, and those two have more baseball knowledge than I do by the barrel full.
So now the Hoosiers are 2.5 games out in the Big Ten race with just six to go. They are now in fourth place in the Big Ten, which is the danger zone I mentioned earlier. It was only this week that D1Baseball.com finally had four Big Ten teams in its projected field of 64. Maryland, which has won six games in a row and 12 of its last 13, has passed the Hoosiers by a half-game.
They are also the Hoosiers' next opponent, with a three-game set in College Park to close out the season next Friday through Sunday.
There is absolutely no guarantee the NCAA will take four Big Ten teams in its 64-team field. So that means Indiana still has work to do to get into the big dance. With six games to go, they probably need to win at last three to be assured of a spot. Anything less might make Selection Monday scary in two weeks.
This team belongs in the NCAA Tournament, especially with that great pitching staff. But they're going to need to prove it on the field. They've lost four of their last five games and five of seven.
It's time to stop that.
The good thing, I suppose, is that Brown and Bierman ARE well rested and good to go. Winning Saturday and Sunday, especially if Ohio State can beat Nebraska here a time or two here in this three-team pod, that changes everything.
Second-guessing is one thing. Going out there and making all the conjecture moot is even better.
That's the great thing about baseball. If things don't go well one day, there's always another game the next day.
And another story to tell.
Related stories on Indiana baseball
- MERCER UPSET NO FANS: Indiana baseball coach Jeff Mercer sounded off about the university not updated its policy on allowing fans for this final weekend of the season. CLICK HERE
- BIG TEN STANDINGS, SCHEDULE: Indiana took a half-game lead in the Big Ten, barely ahead of Nebraska and Michigan. Here's the latest, plus this weekend's critical schedule. CLICK HERE
- INDIANA SCHEDULE: Here is Indiana's complete schedule for the season, including links to game stories from Tom Brew for every game this season. CLICK HERE