Hoosiers Win Series Over Illini in 9-2 Win

Sunday, April 29

Bloomington, Ind.

2 p.m.

Indiana University

31-10, 0

Illinois

25-14, 0

Illinois

Indiana

4/29/2018 7:20:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score Box Score (PDF)

By: Andy Graham
IUHoosiers.com

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - Win a series? Check.

Get the bats going? Check.

Keep the nation's leading hitter in check? At the risk of redundancy: check.

Indiana's host baseball Hoosiers came into the weekend series with Illinois battling their first real stretch of adversity all season. They exited via Sunday's 9-2 victory over the Illini having regained some mojo heading into next weekend's big series at Minnesota.

Scotty Bradley, Matt Gorski and Justin Walker all homered and had two hits apiece for IU. Timmy Herrin supplied seven strong innings on the mound for a well-earned pitching win.

And a very welcome series win.

Despite a solid performance by Friday ace Jonathan Stiever, the Hoosiers had dropped the opener to Illinois, 3-2. And Saturday's game was a 12-inning nail-biter before freshman Drew Ashley's walk-off homer gave IU a 2-1 win that snapped a four-game skid (with three one-run losses).

So Sunday's romp seemed both a relief and a recharging of batteries.

"It was huge," IU coach Chris Lemonis said of the series win against a good Illini crew still ahead of the Hoosiers in the league standings. "We had a rough week, so coming in and winning and fighting after that really tough Friday night loss was huge for us.

"It keeps us resume building and keeps us in the upper half of the Big Ten. That'll be a big weekend next weekend."

Minnesota features one of the nation's best offenses, hitting .303 as a team (ranking 17^th nationally) and averaging 7.3 runs per game.

But IU leads the nation in earned-run-average (2.40) and Herrin, Conner Manous and Tommy Sommer combined to maintain that Sunday.

Herrin's seven innings were a career high and he walked nary a man.

"Really good," Lemonis said of Herrin, a junior who was a standout all-around athlete at Terre Haute South. "Just the poise. I told the team out there, he's come so far.

"When he was a freshman, we couldn't pitch him. He pitched like that against Notre Dame last week (in a 3-0 Hoosier win) and he was really good at Ohio State, too. A big piece for us right now is he continues to improve."

All the Hoosier pitchers did a good job against the nation's leading hitter, Illinois junior Bren Spillane, who entered the weekend batting .444. He went just 2-for-10 against IU pitching, including just a sacrifice fly to show for four plate appearances Sunday.

"Everybody knows it, but our pitching coach, Coach (Kyle) Bunn, has done a phenomenal job getting those guys ready, then calling games," Lemonis said. "I felt we pitched one of the better hitters in the country very well this weekend — and their whole team. That's a really good team over there in the other dugout."

Indiana's lineup flexed its muscle Sunday.

IU got all the offense it would need in the second inning, and in dramatic fashion.

Bradley and Gorski hit consecutive homers to highlight a 3-run frame, the fifth round-tripper of the season for each.

The Bradley bomb came on the first pitch he saw after a Ryan Fineman walk, and it was clear the park wouldn't hold it from the moment of contact. It easily cleared the rightfield wall for a 2-0 lead. Gorski followed with a scorcher that exited the park expeditiously to the east of the scoreboard in left.

"Back-to-back jacks," an appreciative Herrin noted. "That's kind of a good feeling, going out there as a pitcher. You have a cushion. More than a one-run cushion. Makes you just want to go out there and throw more strikes, execute. You kind of take a deep breath before you go out there, and it feels good."

Herrin did a fine job of pitching to contact and letting his defense work. The Illini got their first hit off him in the third, but then a nifty 3-6 double-play initiated by the multi-talented Matt Lloyd at first ensued.

"That was huge, to get out of that (third) inning pretty quick … that was big-time play by Matt," Herrin said. " … I had a lot of good plays behind me, with Jeremy (Houston) at shortstop there … and some good plays made in the outfield. It helped out a lot."

So did an Indiana offense that eventually made the cushion even more comfortable.

Illinois (25-14 overall, 10-5 Big Ten) did get on the board with a single run in the fourth through some great base-running by leadoff man Zac Taylor. After stroking a single to left, he kept running on Ben Troike's high-chop ground-out and made third with one down. Spillane followed with a sac fly to left-center.

Base-running also keyed Indiana answering with a run in the fifth. Houston drew a leadoff walk, was sacrificed to second, then scored all the way from there on a wild pitch.

Another single Illinois run came rather cheaply in the top of the seventh before Indiana put the game away in the bottom of the frame.

Doran Turchin, on via a fielder's choice after Michael Massey single, stole second, reached third on a wild pitch and scored on a high-hopping, turf-created infield single by Michael Michalak that cut IU's lead to 4-2.

Indiana (31-10, 9-5) responded forcefully. Walker ignited a five-run rally by walloping his second homer of the season, a no-doubter to right (fielded deftly on the grassy knoll by IU media relations stalwart Jeff Keag).

After a walk to Houston and a one-out single by Lloyd, Logan Sowers supplied a great at-bat, lining a RBI single to left on the ninth pitch.

A fielder's choice had two men on and two out for pinch-hitter Luke Miller, who rocketed an infield RBI single off the body of Illini pitcher Ryan Kutt to make it 7-2. The exit velocity off Miller's bat was 113 miles-per-hour.

Kutt seemed OK, but exited. Ryan Schmitt came on, but Gorski greeted him with a 2-RBI single up the middle to cap the scoring.

IU reliever Connor Manous gave up a leadoff single to Grant Van Scoy to start the Illlini eighth, but then recorded two outs before giving way to fellow freshman Tommy Sommer. Sommer started with a 3-0 count against Spillane but came back to record a strikeout.

That's a big spot for a freshman, no matter what the score is," Herrin said. "That's one of the best hitters in the country. Really happy for Tommy."

Lemonis was happy to see the Hoosier bats, dormant for much of the week, rack up 10 hits Sunday.

"I think Ashley's home run was huge (Friday), and I think Scotty Bradley's was, too, for the offense (Saturday)," Lemonis said. "We've pitched like that all year, but getting the hitters going was a big part.

"Scotty's home run early and getting those two home runs back to back, I think, took it off everybody's shoulders, and we could relax and play the game.

Herrin sensed that, too.'

"We'd had a lot of one-run losses, then we won by one run yesterday and it kind of lifted a monkey off our backs," Herrin said. "And the offense kind of exploded today, and the pitchers went out there and did what we did.

"I think it's huge for us to get this series win against a really good Illinois team. And going up against Minnesota next weekend, that's one of the best teams in the country right now. Their offense is one of the best in the country. So we're excited to go up to Minneapolis to play them."