His hand forced by Indiana's recently prolific offense, Penn State head coach Robbie Wine removed starter Greg Welsh after 3-plus innings, and the No. 29 Hoosiers (18-3, 3-0), subsequently pummeled the Nittany Lions' bullpen en route to an 11-1 victory - their 11th in a row - in game two of the doubleheader Saturday afternoon at Bart Kaufman Field.
IU has scored double-digit runs in four of the last six games, perhaps in part to the consistency the Hoosiers have enjoyed: The top six hitters in the lineup have remained the same. Sophomore catcher Chad Clark said that constructs confidence.
"We build off each individual player," Clark, who bats eighth, said. "Each guy in the lineup has their own role. We know each guy will produce, and the guy behind him will produce. Basically, we just build trust in each other throughout the lineup."
Welsh, making his second career start, kept that lineup in check the first couple frames. In the third, with one man retired, he issued consecutive walks to senior center fielder Justin Cureton and sophomore designated hitter Kyle Schwarber. Sophomore left fielder Scott Donley singled home Cureton, and senior shortstop Michael Basil doubled to plate sophomore first baseman Sam Travis.
Junior third baseman Dustin DeMuth bunted for a hit to lead off the fourth, and Wine went to his bullpen. Welsh surrendered three runs - all earned - in three-plus innings of work.
"Our guys did a good job," Smith said. "They tried to play the matchup stuff the rest of the way. With our lineup, I still say it's pretty tough to do because of our right-left-right all the way down."
Though Cody Lewis held the Hoosiers to one run in 1 2/3 innings, IU had success against him in the fifth. Cureton led off with a single. Though Lewis attempted twice to pick him off, the Hoosiers' center fielder stole second on the first pitch of the at-bat to Schwarber. The Middletown, Ohio, native walked on four pitches. Travis dropped down a sacrifice bunt down the third base line. A batter later, Lewis plunked Basil to load the bases. Wine made his second pitching change.
Geoff Boylston allowed one run to cross the plate the rest of the inning.
IU hung a seven-spot in the next frame. Clark reached on an error and, via a wild pitch and throwing error by catcher J.C. Coban, scored during Cureton's at-bat. The Indianapolis native grounded out to Boylston, and Schwarber singled right back through the box to drive home freshman second baseman Garret Brown. Wine brought in the freshman submariner, Jack Anderson, who gave up hits to all four Hoosier hitters he faced. Clark said the veterans on the team have had some experience facing ex-Hoosier pitcher Jonny Hoffman, but Anderson just couldn't get the ball down in the zone.
"You've just got to stay back on those guys and let the ball travel deep," DeMuth said. "See it deep, see it up. If he puts it up, it's going to be pretty easy to hit. If he's down in the zone, it's going to be a little tough."
IU sophomore starter Aaron Slegers allowed a single earned run on three hits in five innings of work to earn his fourth win against no defeats. Smith said Slegers was on a pitch count due to his start on Wednesday.
"We had gone into this game saying we were going to monitor his pitch count," Smith said. "When we had the lead, we were thinking about taking him out after the fourth, but I wanted to give him a chance to go ahead and get the win.
"Even if he cruised through the fifth, which he did, we were going to take him out."
DeMuth said he and his teammates build off their pitching staff.
"Pitching's been going at it all season," he said. "We build off them, and they give us a chance to put some runs up. They keep them off the board. We put runs up. That's the name of the game"
