NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The result was already inevitable. Indiana baseball trailed 13-5 Tuesday night to No. 9 Vanderbilt at Charles Hawkins Field, but it didn’t matter to Ryan Rushing.
The Hoosiers’ freshman lefty was dealing in just his second collegiate outing. Ahead in a two-strike count against Vanderbilt junior Matthew Polk, Rushing fired an offering Polk could only helplessly wave at. The strikeout — Rushing’s third of the night — wasn’t game-changing.
Still, the 5-foot-10 hurler pumped his fists and was gleefully greeted by his teammates in the dugout. Along with freshman righty Eli Shaw and redshirt freshman Jacob Vogel, Rushing helped solidify a trio of young, fiery arms that showed flashes against some of the best bats in the nation.
“Those three young guys are going to have to give us a shot in the arm, no pun intended,” head coach Jeff Mercer said postgame. “And they did that. It was abrasive stuff, landing off-speed pitches, attacking and getting ahead — they were really good. I was thrilled with how they performed today.”
Mercer said getting experience for the young arms was paramount. Around this time last season, now-sophomore pitchers Brayden Risedorph and Connor Foley emerged as valuable bullpen options.
They both received nods in clutch spots in the latter part of the year, and they’re now the top two members of the starting rotation. But now, behind Foley, Risedorph, graduate lefty Ty Bothwell and junior Julian Tonghini, Indiana’s thin bullpen is starving for more depth.
Shaw exhibited shaky command in his sole inning of work, giving up four runs and issuing three walks. After Shaw, the towering 6-foot-7 Vogel tossed a shutout frame and Rushing closed out the final three innings.
Before the youthful trio was thrown into the fire, a pair of more experienced pitchers ran into considerable trouble. Senior righty Seti Manase got the start in an opening role, but he struggled from the outset.
Vanderbilt’s first five members of the lineup recorded hits in the first inning, and Manase plunked the sixth before surrendering an RBI single in the next at-bat. Manase went through the entire order in just the first frame, and his outing ended after six hits and six earned runs.
Still, Mercer liked Manase’s fearlessness against an imposing array of Commodore hitters.
“Seti was aggressive, and he wasn’t tentative,” Mercer said. “He was throwing hard, his stuff was good. They just got to him. He didn’t do anything wrong — he just ran into a good offense.”
Redshirt sophomore lefty Grant Holderfield took over in the second, and aside from a two-run homer from Vanderbilt senior Alan Espinal, Holderfield kept the damage to a minimum in his two innings of action.
At the plate, the Hoosiers batted .206 as a collective and .250 with runners in scoring position, compared to a staggering .615 mark with RISP for the Commodores. While Indiana only totaled seven hits, it consistently pieced together long, competitive at-bats — a trend continuing from the series loss to Troy University over the past weekend.
The Hoosiers scored 22 runs in three games against the Trojans, 21 of which came in Sunday’s doubleheader. While the production took a steep decline against Vanderbilt, Mercer was pleased with how the offense competed.
Still, there were frustrations. In the top of the fifth, after grounding into a double play to put a screeching halt to Indiana’s rally, sophomore shortstop Tyler Cerny slammed his helmet on the turf near first base after failing to beat out the throw.
Cerny collected his helmet, stormed into the dugout and slammed it again — this time on the dark green padding. Mercer downplayed any frustrations with Indiana’s current form and said these losses only serve as fuel for the future.
“There’s no happy losses or excited to lose or great try,” Mercer said. “But what you do is you get knocked down and you get back up and it makes you better, it makes you tougher. In the long run, it pays off so much more than not challenging yourself.”
Indiana has an immensely quick turnaround as it returns home from Nashville to host Illinois State University (5-8) on Wednesday night at Bart Kaufman Field. Again, the Hoosiers will deploy a bullpen approach against the Redbirds and hope to see the return of Tonghini, who Mercer said has been dealing with back tightness.
As the Hoosiers inch closer to conference play, more and more will be asked of the young pitchers. While Tuesday night was by no means, the result Mercer wanted, he took solace in the play of the freshmen arms.
And though Indiana lost three of its last four contests, his primary goal hasn’t changed.
“Everything that we want to do is ahead of us,” Mercer said. “The reality is we want to be a great team. We want to be one of the best teams in the country.”
Follow reporters Matt Press (@MattPress23) and Nick Rodecap (@nickrodecap) for updates throughout the Indiana baseball season.
