Brody Brecht is one of the most interesting pro prospects in the Rick Heller Era of Iowa baseball. He took the mound on Friday night for the beginning of Iowa's series against Indiana -- and once again displayed electric stuff.

Brecht's fastball gets most of the headlines, and for good reason:

There aren’t many pitchers, at any level of baseball, that can throw a pitch at 104 mph. The vast majority of those that can are typically used as single-inning relievers. Brecht threw his in the 2nd inning of a start in which he went five innings total.

Remarkably, the fastball isn’t even Brecht’s best pitch. That would be his slider.

The slider (the tweet calls it a slurve, but it's most often called a slider) is Brecht’s put-away pitch. In his March 11 start against Texas Tech, Brecht recorded 7 strikeouts -- all on his slider.

Against #1 LSU on February 25th, Brecht struggled with his command all day. His fastball in particular was all over the place. When Brecht needed strikes, he turned to the slider.

But the fastball is always there, too. And it comes in fast enough that if a batter tries to sit on the slider, he’ll never catch up if he gets a fastball instead. An overlay of the two pitches shows just how devastating the combination can be.

7 IP, 7 K, 2 H, 4 BB, 1 ER

Brecht set a new personal record against IU, going 7 strong innings and rarely facing much trouble. Seven innings is an impressive achievement for Iowa's righty fireballer; before Friday’s game, the furthest Brecht had gone in a game was 5 2/3 innings, and he had only gone more than 5 innings twice in his career.

That said, Brecht also got some help from an overly impatient opponent. In the fourth inning, a Hoosier single and walk put two runners on base with just one out. Indiana didn't take the opportunity to force Brecht to throw strikes, though; just three pitches later, Brecht had forced a groundout and a routine pop-up to center to end the inning unscathed.

Indiana 1st Time Through Order: 0-8, BB, 4 K

Indiana 2nd Time Through Order: 1-6, 1B, 2 BB, K

Indiana 3rd Time Through Order: 1-7, 1B, BB, R, 2 K

Pitch Count: 99

Balls: 42

Strikes: 57

Strikes Looking: 18

Contact Strikes: 25

Swinging Strikes: 14

First Pitch Strikes: 15/26

Brecht dominated Indiana the first time through the order. It's hard to ask for much more than 0-8 with a walk and 4 strikeouts. The second time through, he didn’t get many strikeouts, but also didn’t give up hard contact. And while most pitchers struggle the third time through a lineup, Brecht did better the third time through than the second, even as he gave up a run.

The biggest issue for Brecht thus far in his career has been his command/control. Those command/control issues lead to walks and are what usually gets Brecht in trouble — and keeps him from getting deep into a start.

Encouragingly, Brecht’s command seemed to improve as the game went on.

Brecht's ball/strike ratio was near 50/50 in the first five innings, but in the sixth and seventh, he threw 19 strikes on 29 pitches — much more in line with a typical quality outing.