By Adam Hensley
The hunt for consistent hitting continues. After Iowa’s 6-5 victory against Grand View, head coach Rick Heller still wanted dependability in the hitting department.
“It starts when you show up at the ballpark,” Heller said. “Who knows, there’s probably a bunch of excuses we could make. We live to learn from it.”
The Hawkeyes registered 8 hits and 6 RBIs on the day. Two of those hits came from Austin Guzzo — including a home run — but single-hit performances litter the box score.
Numerous players, such as Grant Judkins and Mason McCoy, failed to record a hit in each of their four opportunities at the plate.
Jake Adams and Robert Neustrom each only connected on a hit, but their damage came at the right time.
Adam’s home run in the seventh boosted Iowa over the top on the scoreboard, but Neustrom’s 3-run double in the third answered a 3-0 Grand View run to tie the game.
“I think things just need to fall together a little better,” Neustrom said. “I think we need to stay consistent, you know, keep the bats rolling, keep the runs coming in.”
What needs to change, he said, is that he and his teammates lock in at the plate.
After the series win against Purdue on Sunday, Heller wanted to see balanced hitting throughout his batting order and not just from his best hitters.
He said that for Iowa to compile a successful outing at the plate, his team needed to string together stable at-bats, especially from players towards the bottom of the lineup, who received numerous opportunities in the Purdue series but failed to capitalize.
Timely hits fueled the narratives behind both the series win against Purdue and the victory against Grand View.
When the Hawkeyes needed a hit the most, the batters came through.
Iowa aims to keep the hits flowing throughout its contests — not just with the game on the line.
“There really wasn’t a lot of consistency,” Adams said. “There [were] a lot of ground balls and fly outs. For the most part, we still have to clean up a lot of things.”
Hitting inconsistencies haven’t bothered Iowa for the entire year, however.
In the two games leading up to their first Big-Ten series of the season, the Hawkeyes’ bats fired on all cylinders.
Against Kansas State on March 19, Iowa scored 12 runs on 12 hits. In that game, Ben Norman recorded 4 hits and Adams notched 3, all of which flying past the outfield wall.
The next contest against Bradley featured 10 Hawkeye hits and the same number of runs.
With UNLV coming to town this weekend, Iowa can’t rely solely on outstanding pitching to keep them in games.
The Hawkeyes need to fall back into their groove at the plate, and a few days off to step away from games might just do the trick.
“We haven’t really gotten deep in the [UNLV] scouting report,” Heller said. “The big thing I know we will do is we’ll really have a focused batting practice tomorrow with a lot of drill work and getting back to the basics.”