In the NCAA Tournament, teams rely on their ace to go deep into a start. In regional play, the regional winner might play as many as five games in a 4-day period. With so many games to play, bullpens get stretched thin. If the team’s ace can give them 6 or 7 good innings, that can help save bullpen arms to contribute in one of the other games instead.

Today, in the biggest start of Brody Brecht’s career against #14 Indiana State, he pitched like the ace Iowa needed.

7.0 IP, 8 K, 4 BB, 2 H, 2 ER

Pitch Count: 108
Balls: 42
Strikes: 66
Contact Strikes: 34
Strikes Looking: 12
Swings and Misses: 20
First Pitch Strikes: 20/27 (74%)
Batters that Took a First Strike: 10/26—one batter walked on 4 pitches
First Time Through Order: 2-8, 2 Ks, BB, home run, single
Second Time Through Order: 0-8, 3 Ks, BB
Third Time Through Order: 0-7, 3 Ks, 2 BBs
vs Lefties: 2-14, 4 Ks, BB, home run, single
vs. Righties: 0-9, 4 Ks, 3 BBs
Results with First Pitch Strike: 2-19, 6 Ks, BB, home run, single
Results with First Pitch Ball: 0-4, 2 Ks, 3 BBs

In Brecht’s roughest outings of the season—against Penn State and Ohio State—opposing hitters mostly kept the bats on their shoulders.

Today, Indiana State went to the plate looking to swing. Just 10 of the 27 batters Brecht faced took the first strike. And after the first strike, Indiana State basically swung at every strike they saw. Overall, Brecht threw 66 strikes in the game, with Indiana State hitters swing at 54 of them.

In most of Brecht’s Big Ten outings, his first pitch strike percentage was somewhere in the 50s. Against Penn State and Ohio State it dropped 37.5%.

With the control and command issues that Brecht has, getting that first pitch strike is crucial for him. Today, he recorded a first pitch strike an outstanding 74% of the time. That was perhaps the biggest reason why he got through 7 strong innings.

This season, Brecht’s results have correlated well with his first pitch strike rate. When he starts with a high first pitch strike rate against opposing hitters, he does well (like he did in this game). When his percentage is closer to 50%, his results are often okay, but not great. And when his first pitch strike rate has dropped below 50%, that’s when he's had his worst results of the season.

In the first inning and again in his final four innings (the fourth through seventh innings), Brecht was absolutely dominant. In those five frames, he struck out six batters, allowed zero hits, and surrendered just two walks (each in two-out situations).

The sixth and seventh innings were particularly impressive. Brecht sat at 85 pitches through five innings, and in a regular season game, Iowa head coach Rick Heller probably would have strongly considered pulling him there. Brecht has only thrown 100 or more pitches in a handful of starts, and he has struggled somewhat later in starts.

Today, Brecht didn’t struggle as his pitch count climbed over 90. He worked through his final two innings on just 23 pitches, and left with a 4-2 lead and Iowa just six outs away from a crucial victory.

Even Brecht’s second inning was pretty good. He gave up a leadoff home run on an 0-2 pitch, then battled back with two strikeouts and a groundout. The home run was just the second that Brecht has given up in his college career. Had Brecht not left one pitch over the zone, he would have had another easy inning.

Brecht started the third inning with a walk against Grant Magill, but the at-bat was competitive. The count went full, and the batter fouled the sixth pitch off before finally getting a walk on the seventh pitch of the at-bat. Then Seth Gergely, the ninth hitter in ISU's lineup, followed that walk with a weak grounder that found its way through the infield. Because the ball was slowly hit, Magill was able to make it all the way to third base.

All things considered, Brecht did well to limit the damage after that. Indiana State got a run on a sac fly from Randal Diaz to center, but Brecht escaped the inning without allowing another run thanks to a couple of ground ball outs.

There were likely more eyes on Brecht today than at any other start he’s had in his career. Indiana State is an NCAA Regional host and the 14th-ranked team in the country, and the pressure was on Brecht to perform and put Iowa in a good spot.

Unfortunately, the start wasn’t enough for Iowa. The bullpen cracked in the eighth inning after Brecht's strong start, and Iowa ultimately fell 7-4 against Indiana State.

If Iowa doesn’t advance further in the postseason, Brecht finished his sophomore year with one of the best outings of his season. There were plenty of questions this year about whether Brecht could control his pitches well enough to be successful and whether he could pitch deep into games -- his performance today was an emphatic "yes" to both of those questions, and he did it on his biggest stage yet.

Brecht’s next stop will be the Cape Cod summer wood bat league, where many of the nation’s top collegiate players spend their summers. If Brecht adds a strong showing in the Cape Cod League to the strong ending of his college season, then he should further cement his status as one of the top prospects in the 2024 MLB Draft.

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