Unfortunately, I will be indisposed this weekend (and probably next) and won't be able to tune into much baseball. So, I am going to write my preview early.
UK will take on the Indiana State Sycamores in a 3 game home series that starts this Friday. Indiana State is located in Terre Haute, Indiana with a student population of 8,658.
Kentucky owns a 7-4 overall record against Indiana State with our last meeting coming all the way back in 2009. That was Gary Henderson's first season at the helm of UK baseball and UK hosted the Sycamores at Cliff Hagan on the second weekend of March that season. UK took the series in a 3 game sweep. Those that may recall, that 2009 team featured some great players like Chris Rusin, Alex Meyer, James Paxton, Chris Bisson and Logan Darnell. The Sycamores play in the Missouri Valley Conference, which is a conference that UK will be very familiar with. UK has already faced Evansville from the MVC and will also face Southern Illinois (next weekend) and Murray State from that conference. A year ago Indiana State finished 5th in the 8 team conference with a 10-10-1 record. 26-22-1 overall.
Mitch Hannahs is in his 10th season with the Sycamores and he has taken the Sycamores to the NCAA tournament 3 times, most recently in 2019. Brian Smiley is the associate head coach and he was one that Hannahs kept on staff when he came to Indiana State, largely serving as recruiting coordinator and infield coach. Justin Hancock, a former big league pitcher who played for the Cubs, joined the staff in 2021 and will "work primarily with the pitchers." I think it is interesting that he has such a short bio and that they do not call him pitching coach. Seems like he's recruiting his old college a bit as he has brought in at least two pitchers from Lincoln Trail College, both lefty pitchers.
The Sycamores come into KPP holding a 2-5 record and things have not gone well for them this season. They kicked off the year in Port Charlotte, Florida in the Snowbird Baseball Classic. They first butted heads against Iowa and went to extra innings, eventually losing 6-2 in 11. They bounced back with a couple of wins against Quinnipiac and FGCU before losing four straight. That stretch included a midweek bout against Miami and a weekend tilt against Northeastern in the same weekend classic. They will come into the weekend with a pretty strong RPI of 80. As things sit they are 1-2 against Q1 opponents and 0-3 against Q2. This will be their first game playing outside of the state of Florida.
Indiana State is hitting fairly poorly as a team with an overall average of just .234. They have 13 doubles, 3 triples and 6 home runs combined through their first 7 games. They have also struck out an eye popping 81 times while drawing 29 walks and 16 HBPs. They have stolen just 5 bases and have hit into 5 double plays. All in all, to this point, absolutely nothing about this team stands out as a positive offensively. DH/C Luis Hernandez leads them in batting average at .333. He will hit in the middle of the lineup and has 3 doubles and a home run while striking out 8 times and drawing 4 free bases, he has picked up 1 of those 5 steals. Josue Urdaneta will man second base for them and is hitting .296 and he too has 3 doubles with 6 walks to 4 strikeouts and one stolen base. Randal Diaz will be at short. He has a couple of triples on the season. Their power, if you can call it that, will come from Mike Sears at third who is hitting .240. Sears has a couple of home runs, but he's a strikeout machine with 18 strikeouts in his 25 at bats. Overall, I would expect UK pitching to absolutely dominate this group. After Sears, you have Gergely (.217), Magill (.150), and Rivera (.048) with pretty sour batting averages.
On the mound, things don't look much better for the Sycamores. They hold a team ERA of 7.54 and opponents are hitting .286 against their arms. They have done a good job of limiting walks with just 29 but they aren't exactly outstanding at getting strikeouts with just 69. They have given up 18 homes runs. 18... holy... That, to go along with 18 other extra base hits (14 doubles and 4 triples). So, they are having some major issues keeping the ball down. Matt Jachec, a righty junior, looks to be their Friday night guy. He was a first team all conference selection a year ago and was 9-2 with a 2.88 ERA. He was also 4th in the NCAA in strikeout-to-walk ratio at (8.89) and third in the country in walks allowed per nine innings (0.84). That has not translated to the young 2023 season as he's appeared in 3 games with 2 starts and currently has a 5.25 ERA through 12 innings. He's given up 7 earned with a double and 3 home runs. He has struck out 12 and given up 0 walks, but opponents are hitting .298 against him. So, he seems like he has good control, but he's kept the ball up and he's been hit pretty hard. Amazingly, they pitched him 5 innings in the opener against Iowa and then brought him back on Sunday to throw another inning against FGCU. Not sure why they did that so early in the year, but if they were willing to do it once they may be willing to do it again. Lefty Zach Davidson (12.27 era) seems like he will be the Saturday guy and things have also gone poorly for the junior transfer from Radford. In an even more bizarre pitching management, he started and threw 3 innings of 1 hit baseball against Qunnipiac, striking out 5, in game 2. He then came back and pitched 0.1 innings against FGCU the next day where he gave up a walk and a 3 run triple. He started again the next Saturday but only made one out before getting pulled as he gave up 2 earned runs on 2 hits and had 3 walks. After that, things get dicey. Three other pitchers have started the other 3 games with freshman Jacob Pruitt (13.50) starting the FGCU the first weekend. He went just 1 inning, giving up 3 runs on 4 hits with a walk and a couple strikeouts. He did pitch 4.1 innings against Northeastern as well, giving up 5 earned runs on 7 hits with 4 strikeouts and 0 walks, but he did not start that game. Pruitt is the most susceptible to the long ball as he's given up 4 of them in just 5.1 innings. Rather, the middle game against Northeastern was started by Connor Fenlong, a righty redshirt senior. Fenlong is a top 250 prospect and worked out of the bullpen a year ago with a 6.75 ERA. He has appeared in 2 games and things also haven't gone overly great as he has gone 11.2 innings and given up 10 runs on 10 hits with 3 home runs. He does have 9 strikeouts and amazingly opponents are only hitting .227 against him but it seems that when they hit him they hit it hard. Brennyn Cutts (7.20 era), a righty sophomore, started the mid-week Miami game and also pitched against Northeastern on the weekend, both times going over 2 innings and giving up a combined 4 runs on 4 hits, 2 of those home runs, with 7 strikeouts and 4 walks. Again, opponents hitting just .222 against him, but that long ball kills. I think UK will see a ton of arms this weekend from Indiana State as they might try more of an all-staff approach with a lot of pitchers going 2 innings or so rather than trying to stretch a starter to the traditional 5-7 innings. All in all, I expect UK hitters to absolutely feast against this staff.
An interesting thing about their roster is that in this day and age of the transfer portal, I would expect that some players from bigger schools who aren't seeing PT might transfer down to a college like Indiana State, but the Sycamores have not relied on that much. They have a transfer from Missouri, a freshman, who has yet to play and one from Nebraska, a GR, that played in one game and recorded 3 ABs without a hit. They do have a guy, Seth Gergley, that transferred from Purdue before the 2021 season and he was a Second team all conference a year ago. Most the other transfers came from smaller colleges or community colleges.
There is just nothing about this team that scares me. They have not, to this point, shown a great ability to hit the baseball and the pitching staff seems like a mess. I would expect that UK should thrive both on the mound and at the plate. Have to be a bit disciplined against their Friday guy, but I think UK can be patient and hit him hard when he makes mistakes. UK should largely see righties this weekend as Indiana State has just 3 lefties on the roster. All in all, I think UK should take all three of these games pretty handily.
UK will take on the Indiana State Sycamores in a 3 game home series that starts this Friday. Indiana State is located in Terre Haute, Indiana with a student population of 8,658.
Kentucky owns a 7-4 overall record against Indiana State with our last meeting coming all the way back in 2009. That was Gary Henderson's first season at the helm of UK baseball and UK hosted the Sycamores at Cliff Hagan on the second weekend of March that season. UK took the series in a 3 game sweep. Those that may recall, that 2009 team featured some great players like Chris Rusin, Alex Meyer, James Paxton, Chris Bisson and Logan Darnell. The Sycamores play in the Missouri Valley Conference, which is a conference that UK will be very familiar with. UK has already faced Evansville from the MVC and will also face Southern Illinois (next weekend) and Murray State from that conference. A year ago Indiana State finished 5th in the 8 team conference with a 10-10-1 record. 26-22-1 overall.
Mitch Hannahs is in his 10th season with the Sycamores and he has taken the Sycamores to the NCAA tournament 3 times, most recently in 2019. Brian Smiley is the associate head coach and he was one that Hannahs kept on staff when he came to Indiana State, largely serving as recruiting coordinator and infield coach. Justin Hancock, a former big league pitcher who played for the Cubs, joined the staff in 2021 and will "work primarily with the pitchers." I think it is interesting that he has such a short bio and that they do not call him pitching coach. Seems like he's recruiting his old college a bit as he has brought in at least two pitchers from Lincoln Trail College, both lefty pitchers.
The Sycamores come into KPP holding a 2-5 record and things have not gone well for them this season. They kicked off the year in Port Charlotte, Florida in the Snowbird Baseball Classic. They first butted heads against Iowa and went to extra innings, eventually losing 6-2 in 11. They bounced back with a couple of wins against Quinnipiac and FGCU before losing four straight. That stretch included a midweek bout against Miami and a weekend tilt against Northeastern in the same weekend classic. They will come into the weekend with a pretty strong RPI of 80. As things sit they are 1-2 against Q1 opponents and 0-3 against Q2. This will be their first game playing outside of the state of Florida.
Indiana State is hitting fairly poorly as a team with an overall average of just .234. They have 13 doubles, 3 triples and 6 home runs combined through their first 7 games. They have also struck out an eye popping 81 times while drawing 29 walks and 16 HBPs. They have stolen just 5 bases and have hit into 5 double plays. All in all, to this point, absolutely nothing about this team stands out as a positive offensively. DH/C Luis Hernandez leads them in batting average at .333. He will hit in the middle of the lineup and has 3 doubles and a home run while striking out 8 times and drawing 4 free bases, he has picked up 1 of those 5 steals. Josue Urdaneta will man second base for them and is hitting .296 and he too has 3 doubles with 6 walks to 4 strikeouts and one stolen base. Randal Diaz will be at short. He has a couple of triples on the season. Their power, if you can call it that, will come from Mike Sears at third who is hitting .240. Sears has a couple of home runs, but he's a strikeout machine with 18 strikeouts in his 25 at bats. Overall, I would expect UK pitching to absolutely dominate this group. After Sears, you have Gergely (.217), Magill (.150), and Rivera (.048) with pretty sour batting averages.
On the mound, things don't look much better for the Sycamores. They hold a team ERA of 7.54 and opponents are hitting .286 against their arms. They have done a good job of limiting walks with just 29 but they aren't exactly outstanding at getting strikeouts with just 69. They have given up 18 homes runs. 18... holy... That, to go along with 18 other extra base hits (14 doubles and 4 triples). So, they are having some major issues keeping the ball down. Matt Jachec, a righty junior, looks to be their Friday night guy. He was a first team all conference selection a year ago and was 9-2 with a 2.88 ERA. He was also 4th in the NCAA in strikeout-to-walk ratio at (8.89) and third in the country in walks allowed per nine innings (0.84). That has not translated to the young 2023 season as he's appeared in 3 games with 2 starts and currently has a 5.25 ERA through 12 innings. He's given up 7 earned with a double and 3 home runs. He has struck out 12 and given up 0 walks, but opponents are hitting .298 against him. So, he seems like he has good control, but he's kept the ball up and he's been hit pretty hard. Amazingly, they pitched him 5 innings in the opener against Iowa and then brought him back on Sunday to throw another inning against FGCU. Not sure why they did that so early in the year, but if they were willing to do it once they may be willing to do it again. Lefty Zach Davidson (12.27 era) seems like he will be the Saturday guy and things have also gone poorly for the junior transfer from Radford. In an even more bizarre pitching management, he started and threw 3 innings of 1 hit baseball against Qunnipiac, striking out 5, in game 2. He then came back and pitched 0.1 innings against FGCU the next day where he gave up a walk and a 3 run triple. He started again the next Saturday but only made one out before getting pulled as he gave up 2 earned runs on 2 hits and had 3 walks. After that, things get dicey. Three other pitchers have started the other 3 games with freshman Jacob Pruitt (13.50) starting the FGCU the first weekend. He went just 1 inning, giving up 3 runs on 4 hits with a walk and a couple strikeouts. He did pitch 4.1 innings against Northeastern as well, giving up 5 earned runs on 7 hits with 4 strikeouts and 0 walks, but he did not start that game. Pruitt is the most susceptible to the long ball as he's given up 4 of them in just 5.1 innings. Rather, the middle game against Northeastern was started by Connor Fenlong, a righty redshirt senior. Fenlong is a top 250 prospect and worked out of the bullpen a year ago with a 6.75 ERA. He has appeared in 2 games and things also haven't gone overly great as he has gone 11.2 innings and given up 10 runs on 10 hits with 3 home runs. He does have 9 strikeouts and amazingly opponents are only hitting .227 against him but it seems that when they hit him they hit it hard. Brennyn Cutts (7.20 era), a righty sophomore, started the mid-week Miami game and also pitched against Northeastern on the weekend, both times going over 2 innings and giving up a combined 4 runs on 4 hits, 2 of those home runs, with 7 strikeouts and 4 walks. Again, opponents hitting just .222 against him, but that long ball kills. I think UK will see a ton of arms this weekend from Indiana State as they might try more of an all-staff approach with a lot of pitchers going 2 innings or so rather than trying to stretch a starter to the traditional 5-7 innings. All in all, I expect UK hitters to absolutely feast against this staff.
An interesting thing about their roster is that in this day and age of the transfer portal, I would expect that some players from bigger schools who aren't seeing PT might transfer down to a college like Indiana State, but the Sycamores have not relied on that much. They have a transfer from Missouri, a freshman, who has yet to play and one from Nebraska, a GR, that played in one game and recorded 3 ABs without a hit. They do have a guy, Seth Gergley, that transferred from Purdue before the 2021 season and he was a Second team all conference a year ago. Most the other transfers came from smaller colleges or community colleges.
There is just nothing about this team that scares me. They have not, to this point, shown a great ability to hit the baseball and the pitching staff seems like a mess. I would expect that UK should thrive both on the mound and at the plate. Have to be a bit disciplined against their Friday guy, but I think UK can be patient and hit him hard when he makes mistakes. UK should largely see righties this weekend as Indiana State has just 3 lefties on the roster. All in all, I think UK should take all three of these games pretty handily.
