Perkins goes five strong, Ellis and Colopy go long in 12-4 route of Louisiana
by Carl James • @jovian34 • February 27th, 2022
It was could and rainy winter day in Central Texas. “It was just an extremely tough day to play baseball” and “We’re all soaking wet,” was among the complaints Louisiana head coach Matt Deggs had for the media in the post game press conference. The Indiana Hoosiers, however, seemed unfazed by the lousy weather and dominated Louisiana in all facets of the game to get 12-4 victory, the Hoosiers first win of the season.
Jack Perkins also collected his first win as a Hoosier pitcher. “Feels great,” was Perkins response after the game. Perkins went five innings, giving up 2 hits and two earned runs while walking four and striking out 7. When asked about Perkins, Deggs said, “Perkins is a good arm, good breaking ball too. He was effectively wild.” Perkins was missing up with several pitches, but usually recovered in an at-bat to bring his pitches down into the strike zone. With his multi-pitch mix, Louisiana was not capable of squaring Perkins up. Perkins himself complemented Louisiana hitters for being patient early in counts but stressed that he “made [pitches] when they mattered.”
Perkins catches him looking 🥞
End 4 | #IUBase 9, Louisiana-Lafayette 2 pic.twitter.com/3Mw20lr8FG
— Indiana Baseball (@IndianaBase) February 26, 2022
The Indiana offense did a lot of damage throughout the game. The scoring started with a monster shot off of the bat of catcher Matthew Ellis. First baseman Brock Tibbitts hit a double and scored on fellow freshman Carter Mattison’s subsequent double.
The big inning and difference maker for Indiana was a seven run top of the third. Louisiana committed two errors and pitchers were struggling to throw strikes late in counts. Indiana hitters were very patient taking fastballs for strikes. Bobby Whalen reflected after the game, “That’s a good feeling for an offense when you get to come up twice in an inning.”
When asked about this approach after the game, Indiana Head Coach Jeff Mercer said, “When we get into those 1-0 counts we go into at three ball zone. So if the pitch is not in that three ball zone, we’ll take it. If we get into a 1 strike count, we’ll go to a five ball zone.” The approach paid off as the Hoosiers managed to walk or get good contact late in those at-bats to put more runs in a single inning than they had in any one game so far. “We’re going to force you into the strike zone,” was Mercer’s key statement. He also said that “I didn’t give the take sign one time in that entire inning” and “I actually gave two or three green-lights in 3-0 counts.” Mercer stressed how much work his team has done on punishing fastballs in the strikezone. He promised the continued improvement in “finishing at-bats” which was a theme he also stressed last week in Clemson.
Centerfielder Bobby Whalen continued his hot streak on Saturday hitting two for five with three runs batted in. “I’m seeing the ball well,” Whalen said after the game. “I want to beat the pitcher and he wants to beat me.” Whalen made a case for the whole team’s hitting approach as well: “As a team I think we’ve been grinding pitches outs the whole season it just hasn’t gone our way. We just haven’t gotten those timely hits that we had today.”
Morgan Colopy is also starting to heat up. Colopy smoked a home run to straight away centerfield in the top of the sixth inning.
Colopy Crush 💥
📹: @FloBaseball pic.twitter.com/ecePzPMF02
— Indiana Baseball (@IndianaBase) February 26, 2022
Indiana improves to 1-4 on the season and will play #6 Stanford today (Sunday) at 12 noon in the Hoosiers’ last game in Round Rock. Due to a weather reschedule, this will be Stanford’s first of two games on the day as they will take on #2 Arkansas in the late evening match-up. Stanford also defeated Louisiana in this event on Friday afternoon. Mercer was non-commital about pitching for Sunday, but he and pitching coach Dustin Glant should have multiple options including last week’s Sunday starter Nathan Stahl who had a solid no-decision start against Clemson. Reese Sharp, Luke Hayden, and Ty Bothwell have also yet to see work in Round Rock.