By Blake Dowson
July is when the baseball season starts to feel very long for college players.
The major-league guys get a break from their grueling schedule right around this time each year, but the college players start their schedule in February with their respective colleges and universities and go straight into summer ball after they finish with their schools in June.
Summer is a relaxing time for most college kids but not baseball players. Though they get away from schoolwork, their game schedules get ramped up, and they start playing every day.
The Iowa baseball players competing in the Northwoods League in parts of Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin are in the middle of a long stretch of baseball, and it’s starting to show a bit in their numbers.
Through games as of July 9, only one Iowa position player in the league was hitting .300, sophomore Robert Neustrom right at .300.
Neustrom has been the brightest spot for the Hawkeyes up north this summer. Playing for the Waterloo Bucks, he has played his way into the lineup quite regularly after playing only sparingly at the beginning of the season. He has 8 doubles, 1 home run, and 16 RBIs in 31 games.
One of Neustrom’s teammates in Iowa City and Waterloo, Zach Fricke, has struggled at the plate this summer but is getting valuable experience against good competition. Fricke, who is hitting .158 in 24 games, will be in the discussion to get at-bats behind the plate for Iowa next season with the loss of seniors Daniel Aaron Moriel and Jimmy Frankos.
Daniel Perry, who redshirted for Iowa last season, has also played for Waterloo and has also struggled. A year removed from high-school ball in California, Perry was the highest-drafted incoming freshman in the Big Ten last year after hitting .306 in the Northwoods League in 2015. He’s hitting just .202 this season with three extra-base hits in 32 games.
Rockford has an Iowa pitcher on its roster, Drake Robinson. Robinson, who didn’t pitch at all for the Hawkeyes last spring, has a 4-2 record for the Rivets. Beyond his record, though, his numbers fail to be very impressive. He has a 3.60 ERA, a 1.63 walks/hits per inning, and .290 batting average/against.
Austin Guzzo, playing for Eau Claire, is the other catching candidate for Iowa next season.
Guzzo was presumably the third-string catcher last season, though he never got behind the plate. He was the designated hitter most of the season, and swung the bat quite well. He is catching this summer and hitting .275, though he’s only played in 14 games.
Mason McCoy returned to the La Crosse Loggers this summer as the reigning league MVP, but he has regressed a bit in 2016. He is hitting a respectable .282, but after setting the league record for hits in 2015, this summer has been disappointing. After scoring more than 80 runs in 2015 (also a league record) McCoy has scored 23 through about the halfway point.
Luke Farley joined McCoy in La Crosse this summer, but hasn’t seen the field nearly as often. Farley started out red-hot this summer, smacking 4 home runs in the first two weeks of play, but hasn’t done much since then. He is hitting .185 in 14 games, with his 4 home runs, 5 walks, and 24 strikeouts.