After mid-season dip, IU baseball back in Big Ten title race, NCAA tournament mix
BLOOMINGTON – By his own admission, IU baseball coach Jeff Mercer might prefer practices to games.
A man who delights in fine-tuning details and developing players relishes the paced nature of work behind the scenes. The process is never more perfectly distilled. When games start, and outside factors wrest control away, Mercer trades structure for stress. Most coaches are that way.
And this one still won’t even pretend to hide his excitement at the series ahead of the Big Ten-contending Hoosiers at Nebraska this weekend.
Two teams, both a game out of first place in the conference — in one of the most competitive league title races in living memory. One throws power arms, works counts and swings for extra bases. The other plays precision baseball, middle of the Big Ten in team OPS (on-base plus slugging percentage) but first in stolen bases and team ERA.
Both trying to position themselves for a furious late run at a regular-season championship, and a place on the right side of the NCAA tournament bubble. In one of the most fascinating months Big Ten baseball has seen in a long time, this weekend’s three-game set at Haymarket Park in Lincoln could prove pivotal.
“I feel like we’re in a good spot right now. I like where we’re at on the mound,” Mercer told IndyStar on Wednesday. “Offensively, we’ve been excellent the last three or four weeks now. I’m not overconfident by any stretch. I just like where we’re at. I like how we’re playing.”
The road to this point has not always been even for the Hoosiers (27-19-1, 12-6).
Picked among the conference’s leading contenders in the preseason — after advancing all the way to the business end of an NCAA regional at Kentucky last season — Indiana started strongly and even briefly appeared in various national top 25 rankings in February.
Then injuries hit. Luke Sinnard, last year’s ace, was lost for the season to Tommy John surgery last August. Northwestern transfer Ben Grable, expected to be a volume-innings arm this season, hasn’t thrown one. By mid-spring, AJ Shepard, Nick Mitchell, Brock Tibbits, Andrew Wiggins and Connor Foley had all spent at least some time down due to injuries of their own.
In their place, Mercer and his staff turned to the younger corners of its roster during what Mercer termed “a player development phase during the season.”
“Expectations and injuries are not great companions,” Mercer said. “The only way is through. You’ve just got to get the next group of guys ready to play.”
After an 8-4 start, Indiana lost 10 of its next 18, the bleeding finally stemmed by a 16-7 home win against ranked Indiana State on April 2.
Since then, the Hoosiers have won 11 of 16 (not counting one tie), including five-straight Big Ten series (at Maryland, Penn State, at Minnesota, Rutgers, at Purdue). They’ve done it behind established leaders like Tyler Cerny and Devin Taylor, the latter of whom torched Rutgers during a three-game sweep in Bloomington two weeks ago.
But they’ve also counted more and more on those previously untested young players who stepped into larger roles than anyone expected they’d need to this spring. Like Fishers alum and redshirt freshman Joey Brenczewski, who at time of writing sat in the top 15 in the league in batting average and posted just 21 strikeouts in 153 plate appearances.
Brenczewski was originally committed to TCU, before his recruitment opened up late in his high school career. Indiana jumped at the chance, taking him from the same program that sent current Yankees farmhand Grant Richardson to Bloomington.
Mercer and Brenczewski had honest conversations his first year, about the need not just to redshirt but to make the most of that developmental period. To add weight and strength. To close holes in his swing and find more barrels. To tap into the potential Mercer believed could make Brenczewski an all-league player later in his career.
Later, it turned out, came sooner than expected.
“Redshirting really allowed me to live in the weight room, live in the kitchen, get stronger and kind of just watch the game,” Brenczewski told IndyStar. “Sometimes you kind of lose sight of that. To see a team like last year go on a run like that, just how they played with the energy and passion, it really taught me how to play this game right.”
Now, Indiana is surging at the right time, and arriving at a more comfortable intersection of injured veterans returning to full health alongside emboldened young players propelled forward by midseason obstacles overcome.
The Hoosiers are one of three teams sitting at 12-6 in the Big Ten with two weekend series left to play. Nebraska and Purdue — which lost its rivalry set in West Lafayette over the weekend when IU rallied from 4-1 down in the 9th inning of game three — join Indiana in second, one game behind first-place Illinois. Preseason favorite Iowa sits 1.5 games out, at 13-8 in league play.
Across the course of the next two weekends, IU will face Nebraska on the road and then sixth-placed Michigan at home. Illinois will host Iowa this weekend, then close the season at Purdue, which is at Michigan this weekend.
Not only are the league’s contenders clustered so tightly together, they will virtually all have some say in where the Big Ten’s regular-season crown lands later this month.
“I’ve never seen it this tight at the top,” Mercer said, “and then to have those teams play each other is even more wild.”
For Indiana, this weekend also represents a dual opportunity. A series win would keep the Hoosiers in the thick of the league race, but it would also hand them valuable victories against the only Big Ten team with a top-25 RPI number nationally. Having played its way back onto the NCAA tournament bubble after that midseason dip, Mercer’s squad could do itself more than one favor with a good weekend in the Nebraska capital.
“You have a chance to play yourself into the NCAA tournament,” Mercer said, “and you have a chance to play yourself into the top two of the league going into the last weekend.”
Now, the Hoosiers must seize it.
Follow IndyStar reporter Zach Osterman on Twitter: @ZachOsterman.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana baseball in Big Ten title mix, back on NCAA tournament bubble
