Indiana Baseball: Hoosiers Drop Season Opener to LSU, 8-1

Indiana was overmatched in its season opener against No. 11 LSU, falling behind early and struggling to make any kind of rally in the 8-1 defeat.

Caleb Coffman | Feb 15, 2020

Indiana Baseball: Hoosiers Drop Season Opener to LSU, 8-1 /

BATON ROUGE, La. — Sometimes the changeup was junior pitcher Tommy Sommer’s best friend, but at other times, it was the bane of his existence.

For much of the evening, the Indiana Opening Day starting pitcher' go-to pitch dazzled, as LSU’s batters repeatedly swung through the ball. But on the rare mistakes he made, the Tigers pounced on him, and defeated Indiana 8-1 in the season opener for both teams.

Sommer isn’t going to overpower many hitters, so he relies on changing his pitch speed and painting the edges of the strike zone to be effective. In the first inning, Sommer missed his spot, hanging a changeup in the middle of the zone to junior first-basemen Braden Doughty, who didn’t miss it.

The ball exploded off Doughty’s bat and junior Elijah Dunham just watched as the ball landed in the left-field bleachers for a two-run home run.

Sommer would respond by striking out the next batter, this time with a well-executed changeup on the inside part of the plate. The Carmel, Ind., native went on to retire seven of the next nine batters as he settled into the game before committing his only other mistake in the third inning.

With two men on base, Sommer once again left a changeup over the middle of the plate that junior catcher Saul Garza skied into left field. Dunham backpedaled to the wall as he tried to time his jump, but the ball fell just beyond his outstretched glove as LSU took complete control of the game.

“I don’t think he finished his pitches as well as he normally does,” Indiana coach Jeff Mercer said about Sommer’s outing. “He was just up throughout his start, and those pitches were elevated. When he’s elevated, he’s not quite as effective.”

Despite those two pitches, Sommer pitched well, recording five strikeouts and only allowing five hits over four innings of work.

The Hoosiers struggled offensively, generating only three hits — two of which were bunt singles — and leaving seven players on base. Indiana’s batters had no answer for LSU’s sophomore pitcher Cole Henry, as he stuck out eight batters while allowing no walks or runs.

“I thought we did a good job (of being patient),” Mercer said. “We had him at like 72 pitches through four innings. That’s just an elite fastball. To the glove side, it's like a 2500-plus RPM fastball, above the major-league average, and to the arm side it has real horizontal action.”

Henry is likely to be picked on the first day of the MLB Draft this season, but Indiana showed a concerning trend that was also present last season. The Hoosiers' offense struggles to hit against top-quality arms.

LSU may be one of the best teams in the country and have a lot of pitchers that project to play at the next level, but Indiana didn’t do themselves any favors in the batter’s box.

Too many times the Hoosiers swung at pitches that were death sentences as a hitter, chasing balls out of the zone. They either weren’t going to catch up to the pitches or were only going to hit a popup.

“I feel like we expanded up several times and chased down several times on pitches that were balls out of the hand,” Mercer said. “You do that enough and you put yourself in a tough spot.”

The two teams will play a doubleheader on Saturday, a schedule change because of rain in the forecast of Sunday. The first game starts at 2 p.m. ET, with the second one following about one hour after the conclusion of the opener.

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