Indiana Baseball: Lessons Learned From Hoosiers' Opening Weekend at Clemson

Indiana's baseball team lost all three games at Clemson during the opening weekend, but after two blowout losses, they battled well before losing in extra innings. Coach Jeff Mercer was happy to see quick growth in his team.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — There are no moral victories at the college level, and Indiana baseball coach Jeff Mercer doesn't go there, either. But still, when it was all said and done after Sunday's 5-4 loss to Clemson in 10 innings, he was very happy with how his team bounced back.

After 9-0 and 19-4 beatdowns the first two days,  the Hoosiers got a good start from Nathan Stahl, and led three different times in the back-and-forth game. Clemson tied the game in the seventh, and won it in the bottom of the 10th to sweep the series. But the Hoosiers played well and were competitive.

"I was really pleased with how we reacted on Sunday, especially against that level of competition in a really big environment,'' Mercer said. "We dealt with our emotions pretty well, and we competed.

"That's why we schedule like this. You want them to grow and improve and, quite frankly, you're hoping to see them more comfortable by Sunday, especially after the way Friday and Saturday went, and we saw that. It was very encouraging to see us do that, play a sound, solid game on Sunday with a game that was there for the taking.''

It's hard for northern teams to compete so early in the year, because warm-weather teams have a definite advantage. Indiana had only practiced outdoors twice all winter before the Clemson series.

Dealing with the environment was a big deal, too. COVID ended the 2020 season after just 15 games, and Indiana played an entire 44-game Big Ten-only season a year ago with no fans in the stands. So dealing with the 6,000 loud and rowdy Clemson fans was a new experience.

They didn't handle that well, especially on Saturday, when Indiana pitchers couldn't get comfortable and walked 16 Clemson hitters and hit six others.

"Sometimes the things we fear the most is the fear itself. And the worst things that could have happened, well, they happened on Saturday,'' Mercer said. "We had seven freshmen on the field at various times this weekend, and they went out there and competed, too. Most of our guys have not played in front of crowd like that before. It was overwhelming for us at times.

"Saturday was so strange, because the way the game started out, it was playing out exactly how we wanted it to. We hit well early, were up 4-0, and in the fourth, we knew we weren't going to let Jack (Perkins) go much past 75 pitches and we had Ty (Bothwell) ready to go against all their left-handers.

"He was terrific last year, and we had a lot of faith in him in that spot, but he just couldn't control himself. That's the first time he's pitched in front of 6,000 fans screaming at him, and that takes getting used to. He struggled with his control, and then the guys who followed all dealt with the same thing. We weren't patient, and it all sort of snowballed. They got sped up, and that first time out is hard.''

There were some good things that came out of the weekend. Indiana only made three errors all weekend and struck out 41 Clemson hitters in three games. Outfielder Bobby Whalen had six hits during the weekend.

"I mean, we've been outside like two days, so considering that, I thought our defense was terrific,'' Mercer said. "Those are the basic structures you want. Play good defense and take care of the ball, hit fastballs and get guys out with good fastballs.

"We did a lot of that. We only had three errors, and one of them was when John (Modugno) slipped off the mound on Friday, And we struck out 41 guys in three days, and that's incredibly good, especially considering the opposition.''

Still, there's a lot to work on, and it doesn't get any easier this week. Weather is an issue for the Hoosiers, which is no surprise in February, Tuesday's game at Miami of Ohio was postponed because of rain, and the schedule is being adjusted for this weekend's games in Texas because of expected winter weather. Two ranked teams — No. 2 Arkansas and No. 6 Stanford a part of the field in Round Rock, Texas, along with Louisiana-Lafayette.

Temperatures in Texas are expected to dip into the 30s over the weekend, and the Karbach Round Rock Classic has moved game times to better deal with the weather. Indiana's game against No. 2-ranked  Arkansas that was originally scheduled for Friday night has been moved up to 5 p.m. ET.

Indiana’s three games will all be played at Dell Diamond, home of the Texas Rangers’ Triple-A affiliate, the Round Rock Express. The games will be broadcast on FloBaseball, a subscription-based streaming service.

• Friday, Feb. 25 – Indiana vs. No. 2 Arkansas – 5 p.m. ET
• Saturday, Feb. 26 – Indiana vs. Louisiana-Lafayette – Noon ET 
• Sunday, Feb. 27 – Indiana vs. No. 6 Stanford – Noon ET 

Mercer knows there's still plenty of work to do, and he's fine with that. He's also not surprised. That happens this time of year, and the 0-3 start is what it is. No excuses.

"Hey, I look at the scores too, and it was bad,'' Mercer said. "The pitch counts were bad too, but it's a fact that we lost our Friday, Saturday and Sunday starters (Tommy Sommer, McCade Brown, Gabe Bierman) and our closer (Matt Litwicki) to the MLB Draft. 

"There are no excuses, and I'm not making any, but everyone is in a new role this year, and that takes some adjusting, I know they work, and I know they're tough kids. We're going to be a good team, and I'm looking forward to us continuing to grow.''

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