At the top of the ninth inning fans at Sembower Field cheered for pitcher Casey Smith not necessarily because he threw the last pitch of the 5-1 victory over the Morehead State Eagles (5-28, 1-6 OVC), but because he threw the last strikeout to get everyone who attended the game a free “Snack Pack Attack” from Mother Bear’s Pizza to total the Indiana strikeout count to 12.
Smith was the fourth pitcher in the game Wednesday after starting pitcher Drew Leininger held the Eagles to only one hit and no runs after 75 pitches through six innings. Leininger had 10 strikeouts before sophomore Johnny Hoffman relieved him at the start of the seventh inning.
“Drew was good. He’s got that change-up working and it’s pretty devastating to the hitters,” Head Coach Tracy Smith said. “We put some other guys in with pretty good velocity and they moved the baseball, so it shows how affective he was today by changing the speeds.”
Coach Smith said that Leininger’s success came from his change-up along with deception. He has to be able to deceive because he is not a “high velocity guy.” He told Leininger that he needed to be creative to be successful at the mound.
“There aren’t too many guys that can pitch like that,” Smith said. “I think that just makes him that much more effective because of his style of baseball.”
Leininger retired after allowing only one hit before finishing the game because of strategy from the coaching staff.
“We told the guys we’re going to treat it like it’s the weekend,” Smith said. “There are no midweek, there aren’t. But once he got to a certain pitch count we would still like to have him available on the weekend.”
Leininger came back from a good year last year but has not been starting as much as a “weekend guy” this year.
“He’s not doing anything wrong,” Smith said. “Its just a couple guys are doing a little bit better. So it’s really afforded us the luxury of putting a ‘weekend guy’ in during midweek. He’s not pitching midweek games as a punishment.”
Indiana put their first run on the board during the first inning and the next run didn’t come until the fourth. Jerrud Sabourin hit a double into left field to bring Alex Dickerson in for Indiana’s second run. In the bottom of the fifth, Brian Ritz hit a double into right field. He scored Indiana’s third run after a sacrifice fly by Dustin DeMuth.
“We’re still waiting on our bats to come around and we’re going to hit even better than we have, but we can’t complain,” Smith said. “The RBIs were key in the victory.”
Indiana gave up only one run in the seventh inning. Michael Fear hit an RBI single that scored Taylor Davis.
In the bottom of the eighth, Indiana scored the final two runs of the game. Sabourin and T.C. Knipp were on first and second base and advanced to second and third when Morehead State threw a wild pitch behind the plate. Dylan Swift hit a double that earned him two RBIs and two more runs for Indiana.
Indiana (24-12, 6-3 Big Ten) will take on Minnesota (11-15, 3-6 Big Ten) this weekend in a three game series at home.
Smith says that Minnesota has a good team with a good coaching staff and even though they are not at the top of the Big Ten, they are not a team to look over. He hopes that Indiana will play well with pitching and a solid defense so they have a better chance of winning the series.
“It’s important for us to have a good, solid home series with a good baseball team which we are going to get with Minnesota,” Smith said.
Smith is proud of Indiana this far in the season and is happy of the way they play as a team as a whole.
“I like the way our guys are playing,” Smith said. “These guys play for each other, they’re into each other and they’re very unselfish. That is what has allowed this team to put it together consistently. I know that’s a general thing, but it’s a special thing when you can get teams like that to just have fun and play for each other. Win no matter who gets the credit and that’s what this team does.”
