Hoosier pitching shuts out Cincinnati

Hayden earns his second win as Indiana pitches to just two over the minimum

by Garrod Creech • @creech_garrod • March 8th, 2022

IU beat Cincinnati 7-0 Tuesday afternoon, showcasing patience at the plate and dominance on the mound in a game that was all but won in the first inning. 

Most of the damage was done in the bottom of the opening frame, where the Hoosiers ran Cincinnati starter Alex Shea off the mound before putting a ball in play. The Bearcats cycled through three arms, hit Bobby Whalen, and issued 5 walks before they were able to staunch the bleeding. Indiana took an early five-run lead and didn’t have to do much else offensively.

On the defensive side, freshman Luke Hayden got his second win in as many starts and set the tone for a dominant day of Indiana pitching. Over three innings, Hayden allowed one baserunner and struck out five on 48 pitches. John Modugno joined the fray in the fourth. He notched a pair of strikeouts himself in his single inning of work and kept the shutout going.

Nathan Stahl took over from there, going 3 innings with 4 Ks and allowing just one more baserunner. Grant Holderfield and Reese Sharp brought the Hoosiers home with two more scoreless frames. The staff’s improving control was on display all afternoon. Their final combined pitching line included 14 strikeouts, no walks, and just two hits.

“We got ahead an awful lot, I don’t know the percentages, but we got ahead a lot, and the ability to land off-speed pitches in fastball counts really threw them off a bit,” Stahl said after the game.

Though the bats weren’t as loud today as they were in last week’s home opener, Brock Tibbitts hit his third home run of the season in the bottom of the fifth inning. Josh Pyne would go long for the first time in his college career two pitches later (fun fact, not his first back-to-back homerun though), and the resulting 7-0 score held for the rest of the game.

When asked about the early impact he and his fellow rookie teammates are already having on this Indiana team, Pyne said he is just grateful for the opportunity to be out there. 

“You know it’s…it humbled me really really quickly,” said Pyne “It was a lot of hard work, and it was something that I’ve dreamed of, and I’m just glad to get out here and be able to help the team any way that I can.”

Indiana improved to 5-6 on the year and will look to get back to .500 against a struggling 0-11 Purdue Fort Wayne team tomorrow afternoon at 4 pm ET. The game will be broadcast on BTN+.