Iowa baseball’s bats showed how dominant they can be from top to bottom in an 11-6 victory over Milwaukee on Tuesday. 

With eight of the 15 Hawkeye batters recording a hit, the team showed plate discipline and executed multiple times with runners on base, all of which are signs of a great offensive attack. 

“Offensively, we’ve just been a tough out after tough out,” Iowa head coach Rick Heller said. “One through nine, guys are just battling and doing their part to help the cause.”

Iowa leads the Big Ten with a .317 batting average and is among the top of the conference in a handful of other statistics – such as runs batted in, doubles, and on-base percentage. 

But was the offense supposed to be this good heading into the season? 

When talking about the capabilities of the run production during the Iowa baseball media day, Heller admitted to having some uncertainty with this year’s unit. 

“The question that’s going to be out there is ‘Are we going to find an identity and score runs?’” Heller said. 

Replacing key pieces like Raider Tello, Davis Cop, and Sam Petersen is no small task. The 2025 unit would have potential–with a handful of returning talent such as Reese Moore and Gable Mitchell. But with a lot of new faces to fill in key positions, uncertainty wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. 

At the end of the non conference portion of the season, some of those questions were coming to fruition. Iowa just dropped three of four to Washington State, the team record dropped to 4-6, and the offensive unit was averaging six runs a game. 

Production wasn’t how Heller imagined, but he was never worried. While the Hawkeyes were struggling to score, this was due to a lack of execution with runners in scoring position, not because they weren’t getting hits. 

“There were so many spots in those first three weeks where we could’ve blew people out or broke the game open or won a close game,” Heller said. 

After the non conference, Iowa traveled to Rutgers to start Big Ten play. This is where Heller saw the biggest flip in overall execution on the offensive end. Iowa outscored the Scarlet Knights 28-6 in the remaining two games of the series – showing everyone the capabilities the bats had.

Now, the Hawkeyes are executing offensively in all aspects. Since conference play started, Iowa has averaged 10.5 runs per game, has multiple batters hitting above .300, and changed the outlook of its entire season. 

Heller credits this flip of the switch to the overall depth that this year’s team has. If injuries or player slumps ever hit this roster, Heller is confident in his other athletes to step up to continue the offensive production no matter what. 

“This is a lineup that really doesn’t have to rely on one, two or three players like last year’s team did,” Heller said. “This team offensively, we have a lot of options and a lot of depth.”