Baseball can be a cruel game. Iowa was largely excellent for seven innings on Saturday night against Indiana State -- Brody Brecht held the Sycamores to just two runs on two hits, while Iowa's batters methodically put four runs on seven hits to give Iowa a 4-2 lead.
One disastrous eighth inning, though, was all it took to put Iowa in a 7-4 hole that the Hawkeyes were unable to escape in the ninth inning.
The loss drops Iowa out of the winner's side of the regional bracket and sets up an elimination game against North Carolina at 11 AM CT on Sunday.
RECAP
With a game like this, it only makes sense to begin at the ending. Iowa did a lot of good things in the first seven innings — especially Brecht — but that was all washed away by the collapse in the eighth inning. So let's start there.
After seven superb innings from Brecht in which he allowed just two runs on two hits, Iowa turned the ball over to the bullpen to get the final six outs that would put them at 2-0 and in firm control of the Regional. This was a more than reasonable decision -- while Brecht had looked strong in his final innings (aside from a four-pitch walk in the bottom of the seventh), he was also at 108 pitches, his highest workload of the season.
The Iowa bullpen has also been a strength of the team all season long. Iowa has combined strong starting performances from the likes of Brecht, Marcus Morgan, and Ty Langenberg with a bevy of strong-armed relievers, a formula that carried Rick Heller's crew to to 43 wins this season.
Jared Simpson got the first call out of the bullpen; he was one of Iowa's most-used relievers this season, at 42.1 innings of work. His 5.74 ERA and opponent batting average of .245 weren't among the best of Iowa's relievers, but he had a 3-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio and had been relied upon to good effect in multiple situations this season.
Simpson didn't have his best stuff on Saturday night, though, hitting the first batter he faced and then giving up a pair of singles after a strikeout before walking the final batter he faced to score a run. Even Simpson was the victim of a bit of bad luck on the two hits, though -- the first took a high hop before reaching SS Michael Seegers, whose moment's hesitation before throwing to first was enough for Luis Hernandez to get to first by a nose. The second single was a bloop single in shallow left that just fell in after Seegers narrowly missed the catch.
Simpson gave way to Luke Llewellyn, who had gotten Iowa out a jam on Friday night with a pair of strikeouts to end the game. He needed two outs to get Iowa out of a bases-loaded jam in the eighth inning tonight with no further damage done -- and was halfway there after getting a strikeout against his first batter. Unfortunately, he allowed back-to-back doubles to the next two hitters, clearing the bases and giving the Sycamores their ultimate 7-4 lead.
Llewellyn has been one of Iowa's top bullpen arms all season -- his 2.60 ERA and .178 opponent batting average were among the best on Iowa's staff. Unfortunately, he blinked against Indiana State's hitters in the most pressure-packed moment of the season, allowing two huge hits that swung the game emphatically (and permanently) in favor of the Sycamores.
BRECHT'S BRILLIANCE
Our regular BrechtWatch feature has an in-depth breakdown of Brody Brecht's excellent outing, but I wanted to give him his due here as well. Brecht was in a pressure-packed situation, making his very first career postseason start and with the eyes of countless scouts and curious baseball fans on him. He more than delivered under heavy pressure, as his final line attests:
7.0 IP, 2 ER, 2 hits, 4 BB, 8 K
He threw 66 strikes in 108 pitches, while also throwing very few noncompetitive pitches completely out of the zone. He also managed to avoid getting into too many bad counts against ISU hitters. It's a bitter pill to swallow that Iowa lost a game in which Brecht was this good, but it doesn't diminish the excellence of his performance.
HITTING NOTES
This was more of a good-enough game for the Iowa hitters than anything else. The Hawkeyes scored four runs on seven hits and three walks. That's not a high-powered display, but it looked like it would be enough to get the win through seven innings. Iowa stranded five runners in the game.
Raider Tello had three of Iowa's seven hits in the game, part of a 3/4 showing at the plate. It was a welcome bounce-back effort from him after he had struggled in a few bases-loaded at-bats against North Carolina on Friday night. Sam Hojnar had an RBI double for Iowa as well.
Iowa's batters have struggled to get extra base hits during the first two games of this Regional. Aside from Hojnar's double in this game, Iowa's only other extra-base hits were doubles from Hojnar and Cade Moss in the UNC game. Three extra-base hits in two games does put a lot of pressure on a team to score via small-ball.
NEXT UP
Iowa will face North Carolina in an elimination game at 11 AM CT on Sunday, June 4. ESPN+ will have coverage. North Carolina defeated Wright State in an elimination game earlier on Saturday.
The winner of the Iowa-North Carolina game tomorrow will turn around and face Indiana State on Sunday night (5 PM CT, ESPN+). If Iowa/UNC beats Indiana State in that game, there would be a final winner-take-all game for the Regional on Monday. Before Iowa can think about that, though, they'll need to regroup from this very painful loss and get ready for the Tar Heels on Sunday morning.
