Indiana University Athletics
Indiana Baseball Ready for Start of Season
3/3/2021 4:30:00 PM | Baseball
By Jared Rigdon
IUHoosiers.com
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – It has been nearly a year since the Indiana baseball team last played a competitive game.
Friday afternoon, IU gets the chance to go at it again with the first of a four-game weekend in Minneapolis, Minn. to begin a 44-game conference-only season.
This weekend will see the Hoosiers play two games with Rutgers and two games with the host school Minnesota inside U.S. Bank Field.
The long layoff combined with a shortened 2020 season provides an added sense of excitement to an IU club that won the Big Ten outright in 2019 and was the No. 2 seed in the Louisville Regional.
"We can go fight and compete against someone else and have fun with it hopefully," IU head coach Jeff Mercer said.
One unique aspect of this season will be the added amount of depth that IU has to utilize. With the cancellation of last season, players were eligible to return for an extra season.
That means players such as senior shortstop Jeremy Houston and catcher Collin Hopkins return to Bloomington to provide stability and veteran presence to the lineup.
"If we can stop the musical chairs at some point, it allows everyone to settle in and do their job," Mercer said. "That's normally how we're going to operate."
IU returns plenty of talent in the field and the plate. Sophomore outfielder Grant Richardson has earned a number of preseason All-American looks after his strong start to last year. Junior infielder Cole Barr also returns to the middle of the Hoosier lineup that had a lot of early success.
Even with all the offensive prowess on the IU roster, the rotation has the potential to be just as strong.
Sophomores Gabe Bierman and McCade Brown, junior Tommy Sommer and redshirt freshman Ty Bothwell will all be featured in this weekend's rotation.
Just like last season, Bierman will get the ball in the season opener against Rutgers with the chance to give IU some immediate success.
"We want to be the best version of ourselves in the last month but now we need to be the best version of ourselves today and still plan on being our best at the end of the season," Mercer said.
While the rest of college baseball started two weeks ago, the Big Ten conference delayed the normal baseball start date by a handful of weeks. As IU works back into the flow of a season, Mercer believes it is much health wise than it normally is.
"The blessing and the curse of this is that we are more physically prepared than we were two weeks ago," Mercer said. "I'm glad we had that time."
IU will open with two games on Friday against Rutgers at 4:00 p.m. EST and Minnesota following that at 8:00 p.m. EST. All games this weekend will be broadcasted on Big Ten Network Plus.
IUHoosiers.com
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – It has been nearly a year since the Indiana baseball team last played a competitive game.
Friday afternoon, IU gets the chance to go at it again with the first of a four-game weekend in Minneapolis, Minn. to begin a 44-game conference-only season.
This weekend will see the Hoosiers play two games with Rutgers and two games with the host school Minnesota inside U.S. Bank Field.
The long layoff combined with a shortened 2020 season provides an added sense of excitement to an IU club that won the Big Ten outright in 2019 and was the No. 2 seed in the Louisville Regional.
"We can go fight and compete against someone else and have fun with it hopefully," IU head coach Jeff Mercer said.
One unique aspect of this season will be the added amount of depth that IU has to utilize. With the cancellation of last season, players were eligible to return for an extra season.
That means players such as senior shortstop Jeremy Houston and catcher Collin Hopkins return to Bloomington to provide stability and veteran presence to the lineup.
"If we can stop the musical chairs at some point, it allows everyone to settle in and do their job," Mercer said. "That's normally how we're going to operate."
IU returns plenty of talent in the field and the plate. Sophomore outfielder Grant Richardson has earned a number of preseason All-American looks after his strong start to last year. Junior infielder Cole Barr also returns to the middle of the Hoosier lineup that had a lot of early success.
Even with all the offensive prowess on the IU roster, the rotation has the potential to be just as strong.
Sophomores Gabe Bierman and McCade Brown, junior Tommy Sommer and redshirt freshman Ty Bothwell will all be featured in this weekend's rotation.
Just like last season, Bierman will get the ball in the season opener against Rutgers with the chance to give IU some immediate success.
"We want to be the best version of ourselves in the last month but now we need to be the best version of ourselves today and still plan on being our best at the end of the season," Mercer said.
While the rest of college baseball started two weeks ago, the Big Ten conference delayed the normal baseball start date by a handful of weeks. As IU works back into the flow of a season, Mercer believes it is much health wise than it normally is.
"The blessing and the curse of this is that we are more physically prepared than we were two weeks ago," Mercer said. "I'm glad we had that time."
IU will open with two games on Friday against Rutgers at 4:00 p.m. EST and Minnesota following that at 8:00 p.m. EST. All games this weekend will be broadcasted on Big Ten Network Plus.
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