Another Series Win Has IU Trending Up
By: Sam Beishuizen | Twitter
IUHoosiers.com
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - For the first time since Indiana baseball's opening weekend, the Hoosiers are back to .500.
IU swept a doubleheader against Toledo (3-15-1) convincingly Sunday behind a pair of dominant pitching outings to take a four-game series over the Rockets 3-1. The wins pull the Hoosiers to 9-9 on the year, even for the first time since being 1-1 exactly one month ago.
"Scratching and clawing all the way through," head coach
Chris Lemonis said. "We really put a lot of emphasis right now on the weekend series. We feel like we can match up with anybody on the weekends with the way we pitch. To come out and get two today to win the series is huge."
Senior pitcher
Caleb Baragar was the star of Sunday's action. The lefty was practically untouchable in game one of the double-header as he allowed just one hit, two walks and zero runs while striking out a career best 11 batters over eight innings of work.
Baragar had a perfect game going through six innings before breaking one of baseball's cardinal sins—he started thinking about it.
"I thought about it after the sixth," Baragar said, "and I was like, 'Oh.'"
Sure enough, Baragar allowed Toledo leadoff hitter Deion Tansel to reach on a single to left-center field to begin the seventh inning. He allowed two walks in the eighth inning before handing the ball over to freshman
Tim Herrin to get the final three outs.
"I felt pretty good to start the day," Baragar said. "I had one extra day of rest in there, too. I think that may have helped. But it's just coming out trying to throw strikes again, kind of the same thing as last week. Just pound the zone early, get ahead."
Freshman pitcher Pauly Milto—making the first start of his career—picked up where Baragar left off.
He tossed five innings of two-hit, one-run baseball while striking out three batters to help Indiana to a 5-1 series-clinching win. It was the best outing of Milto's young career.
"Before the game, my heart was beating," Milto said. "Once I started getting out there with (pitching) coach (Kyle) Bunn, he made me feel comfortable, and I did pretty well."
After struggling to get hits strung together to do any damage, senior shortstop
Brian Wilhite crushed a three-run shot over the left field wall to open up the game in the bottom of the fourth inning. His blast highlighted a four-run inning for the Hoosiers that was more than enough support for IU's staff to finish off the win.
The weekend marked at least a brief resurgence in IU's offense that has been inconsistent up until this point in the season. The Hoosiers pushed across 23 runs over four games in what was perhaps their best hitting series of the season.
"It was just a matter of time before the hitters came out," junior first baseman
Austin Cangelosi said. "We can't keep spoiling starts…Offensively, we've got to come together and work on getting collective at-bats. That doesn't mean getting 19 hits a game, it's just manufacturing runs."
Though the start of the season hasn't brought the results Indiana wants, Cangelosi said there's no reason to panic, particularly because of the way the Hoosiers have been playing as of late.
He said Sunday that he hasn't forgotten starting 2-6 in 2014 before finishing 43-16 and ending the season in the NCAA Regionals. There's work left to be done for this year's team to reach that point, but the fact that it's happened before breeds confidence.
"It kind of shows us how to bounce back," he said. "(That team) showed us how. Now it's our turn to show these young guys how."
Go Hoosiers!
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