Heller's Lineup Is A Puzzle, But Hawkeyes Have The Pieces
It's a puzzle Rick Heller tries to put together every night.
"My wife is ready to kill me until I go to bed," the Iowa baseball coach joked at Thursday's media day. "Just thinking of different ways to do it, different matchups, to get the best lineup out there."
Iowa returns five starters, its designated hitter, and two-thirds of its starting rotation.
And with a week until the season-opening games in the Snowbird Classic in Port Charlotte, Fla., Heller isn't sure how that lineup card is going to look every night.
"We still have more battles going on for many positions than I’ve ever had as a coach," Heller said. "It’s a lineup that may change quite a bit in the first 3-4 weeks. There’s going to be a learning curve in there offensively."
Junior Izaya Fullard, the team's leading hitter at .307/.422/.376 last season, will move from first to second base this season.
"We need him to play a solid second base," Heller said.
The rest of the infield still has its questions. Brendan Sher and Dylan Nedved are contending for the shortstop spot. Lorenzo Elion and Matthew Sosa are battling at third base. Freshman Peyton Williams, a left-handed power hitter who was Iowa's high school player of the year last season, will be at first base.
The outfield has three seniors — Ben Norman, Justin Jenkins and Zeb Adreon. Connor McCaffery will see time once basketball season is over.
Iowa's starting rotation is another puzzle that Heller will figure out in the first five weekends away from home. Redshirt sophomore Jack Dreyer is healthy after just pitching 7 1/3 innings last season. Grant Judkins was 4-7 with a 2.72 earned run average. Left-hander Cam Baumann went 4-5 with a 5.29 ERA.
Grant Leonard, who had 14 saves last season, leads a bullpen with more options this season.
"There aren’t a lot of guys pigeon-holed in certain roles," Leonard said.
The Hawkeyes went 31-24 last season, including 10 wins over ranked opponents and a streak of six series wins. It was Iowa's sixth consecutive 30-win season, the program's longest stretch since 1979-85.
Iowa struggled at the end of last season, losing five of the last six games. The Hawkeyes won their Big Ten Tournament opener, then lost to Nebraska and Minnesota to be eliminated.
"I felt like we were still fighting," Heller said. "It wasn’t like we got flat or blown out. I do think the back end of the bullpen got tired at the end of the season, because we had to go to them a lot."
The Hawkeyes close the regular season with three games at Michigan — the Wolverines made it to the championship round of the College World Series before losing to Vanderbilt.
Five Big Ten teams made it to the NCAA Tournament last season. The Hawkeyes last went in 2017.
"It was almost kind of exciting to see the Big Ten get some (publicity), get back to the College World Series," Fullard said. "Michigan really opened up the door for other (Big Ten) teams. Let's see what we can do."