Indiana hitters held at bay and Troy pulled away in the ninth
By Carl James @jovian34 March 9th, 2024
Troy’s juco transfer starting pitcher, right-hander Luke Lyon got his first start of the season after 14.2 innings of relief work with an eye-popping WHIP of just 0.48. The hope was that the Hoosier hitters would be able to do what Troy’s other competition hadn’t. Jeff Mercer told the media, “I felt we had a really good start. Mitchell homers to start the game. It was kind of a fluke deal because that wasn’t his plan. Obviously [Lyon] made a mistake, Mitch worked a long at bat, got a pitch middle in and hammered it. Devin [Taylor] comes up right after that, gets a pitch middle-away and hammers it 107 whatever it was to left-center. I kind of thought: ah good we’re locked in on the plan.”
Indiana Hoosiers 1, Troy Trojans 8:
Inning by inning details in the Live Game Blog | Box Score
Taylor’s rocket was caught, and Nick Mitchell’s solo shot proved to be the only run production the Hoosiers would muster all day. “We weren’t able to get back to where we need to be at, [Lyon] found his groove and they played good defense and it got away from us,” as Mercer described.
Luke Lyon had a three-pitch mix with a 4-seam fastball, a sinker, and a slider Mercer described as a “gyro”. Catcher Jake Stadler added that Lyon, “pretty much got the best of us the whole game. That’s what we talked about after the game. He was doing the same thing every single time and we didn’t adjust.” The impression was clear that Indiana didn’t feel outclassed by Lyon, just that they didn’t stick to the pregame plan.
Mercer stacked the lineup full of left-handed hitters. They combined to go 3-17 on the day. Troy deployed extreme shifts to most of these and with a lot of sliders Hoosier lefties hit a lot of these directly into the shift. Mercer commented that many of the pulled pitches were left over the plate, and he was disappointed that the hitters didn’t use more of the field.
On the mound the Hoosiers stuck with the Saturday duo of Connor Foley and Ty Bothwell. Foley was a little more wild than usual getting into a lot of three-ball counts, walking four Trojans, and plunking one. The two runs that Foley gave up came from a two-run homer by Will Butcher. Foley managed the rest to keep the Hoosiers in the game, but the wildness elevated his pitch count and Bothwell relieved him in the fifth. Bothwell gave up another home to Butcher, which was the only scoring off of Bothwell in the 5th through 8th innings.
Given that the Hoosiers were struggling at the plate and facing a Sunday doubleheader, Bothwell was brought back out to go a third time through the order in the ninth. It did not go well. Kole Myers and Ethan Kavanaugh got on base and Butcher completed his hat trick with a three-run bomb that put the game out of reach. Evan Whiteaker came in and gave up one more homer before ending the inning with the Hoosiers down 8-1. Indiana would not seriously threaten in the bottom of the ninth and the Hoosiers dropped the series opener.
After the game, Mercer said “I felt that as an offense we really let Ty [Bothwell] down.” With the two-run deficit Mercer knew “it’s going to be tough for him to through this third time,” but they didn’t want to spend another key arm in a “losing effort”. Indiana dropped to 8-5 on the season.
Mercer indicated that for Sunday’s doubleheader they expect Brayden Risedorph and Ethan Phillips to have key pitching roles, but just about any arm except Foley and Bothwell would be available. Indiana and Troy will start game 2 at 11am on Sunday. Game 3 will start approximately 30 minutes after the conclusion of game 2.