INDIANAPOLIS – After defeating Ball State at home less than two weeks ago, Indiana baseball met Ball State at Victory Field in Indianapolis for a mid-week non conference matchup, ultimately taking the season series with a 14-4 win in seven innings.
Indiana sent Pete Haas to the mound in what would be a bullpen day. Haas went out for just one inning, allowing a hit while striking out one batter. Indiana would proceed to use seven relief pitchers, calling in Deron Swanson, Ryan Kraft, Aydan Decker-Petty, Brayton Thomas, Seth Benes, Ryan Rushing and Jacob Vogel. The group from the bullpen combined to pitch six innings, allowing just four earned runs on two hits, walking six batters while striking out five.
Indiana head coach Jeff Mercer has used a handful of the midweek games as bullpen days, allowing relief pitchers to develop in real game situations and gain confidence. Six of the eight pitchers used in Tuesday night’s win threw shutout outings.
One of these pitchers who has taken a big advantage of these opportunities has been Thomas. Only a freshman, Thomas has made nine appearances this season, going out for 10 innings of work.
Mercer spoke very highly of Thomas’ outing in the win over Ball State.
“Brayton really turned loose, into the low 90s,” Mercer said. “Breaking ball was better, just really competitive… you could just see a calmness to Brayton’s body language and an attitude and a conviction the way he pitched, it was awesome.”
Another young relief pitcher who excelled in the contest was Benes, who’s been limited to just 8.1 innings of work this season. Benes tossed a scoreless sixth inning, walking one batter while striking out a pair.
Mercer explained what Benes’ development has looked like as of recently.
“Three or four weeks ago, (pitching) coach (Dustin) Glant finally just said, ‘We have to throw the cutter. We have to learn the cutter,’” Mercer said about Glant’s discussion with Benes. “That’s what he’s been doing behind the scenes. The fear is when you throw the cutter, you blend it in the fastball and now your fastball cuts more and you don’t have a true cutter. He’s done a good job of keeping those pitches apart.”
The serviceable outing from Indiana’s pitching staff was supported heavily by Indiana’s continuous offensive success, producing runs in four consecutive innings.
Indiana was first to get on the board, scoring a run in the second inning after Cooper Malamazian singled and then scored on a Will Moore single through the left side.
While adjusting to playing in a professional baseball stadium can be tricky, Jake Hanley showed no trouble, pounding a line drive solo home run to right field in the third inning. Hanley’s home run was his third in the past two games, his 10th of the season.
Indiana continued to rack up one-run scoring innings, putting another singular run on the board in the fourth. Hogan Denny and Cooper Malamazian opened the inning with walks, both being advanced a base after TJ Schuyler grounded out. Shortly after, Denny scored from a passed ball.
The fifth inning was where Indiana’s offense found a groove and ran away with the lead.
Caleb Koskie, Tyler Cerny and Denny were all walked to open up the inning, loading the bases for Malamazian, who hit a single through the right side, driving in Koskie and Cerny. The offense continued to boom throughout the inning as Indiana batted around the order, showcasing hits from Malamazian, Schuyler, Moore, Devin Taylor, Korbyn Dickerson and Tyler Cerny. The impressive inning totaled a nine-run performance at the plate, with seven of the runs occurring with zero outs aside.
Every starter in Indiana’s batting order reached base safely while four batters had themselves multi-hit games, including Moore, Taylor, Dickerson and Malamazian.
The 14-4 win over Ball State marks Indiana’s second time defeating the Cardinals this season, after previously winning 7-5 on April 8 at home.
Now sitting at five games over .500, Indiana will travel this weekend to Iowa City, Iowa, facing the Iowa Hawkeyes in a three-game conference series. First pitch on Friday is scheduled for 7:02 p.m. EST.
