Tate: Baseball is back … – Champaign/Urbana News-Gazette

Following this Winter of Our Discontent, Illinois coach Dan Hartleb receives the call to make Illini devotees once again feel good about themselves.

Forget the impending snowfall. Baseball is upon us. Hartleb’s club and three outdoor compatriots — golf, tennis and track — produced Big Ten championships last spring. And baseball became a “spectator sport” by winning a school-record 50 games, winning the regional here and attracting more than 7,000 fans for two NCAA Super-Regional games (both losses to Vanderbilt).

Illini Nation relishes more of that competitive excitement, something to lift chins off chests. Postseason adventures are thinning out for the UI’s football and two basketball teams. The latter quintets have lost 33 games this winter as they approach the school record of 37.

Holes to plug

Baseball offers hope but, as was apparent in a 1-2 start against Tulane last weekend, too many stars have departed to expect anything approximating last year’s 21-1 Big Ten record. That was an outlier season.

Since Itch Jones took over in 1991, bringing Hartleb with him from Southern Illinois, the UI shows a 25-year record of four Big Ten regular-season champions, two conference tournament winners and five NCAA tournament appearances.

Before last year, the Jones-Hartleb record was a good-but-not-sensational 352-310 in Big Ten play.

More pertinent to 2016, Hartleb forges ahead without his top five pitchers, who won 38 games and saved 14 (all by Tyler Jay), and five sluggers who drove in 198 runs. Switch hitters like South Dakotan David Kerian (16 homers and a .667 slugging percentage) and veteran bats like Ryan Nagle, Reid Roper and Casey Fletcher don’t come along every day.

Both sides of the fence

Here’s the report from New Orleans, where Illinois lost 6-5 in 10 innings and 3-0 in its first two games before winning the series finale 5-2.

Good News: Starting pitchers Cody Sedlock, Doug Hayes and Andrew Mamlic were solid. They permitted five earned runs in 17 2/3 innings, giving up 17 hits, fanning 20 and walking six. That’s OK against the nation’s No. 19 team.
Bad News: Illinois hit no home runs and failed to score in the first seven innings of all three games.

Good News: While the team batting average was a dismal .248, it came through in some last-out moments. And Hartleb may have located his designated hitter in Lake Zurich junior Anthony Drago, who swatted four doubles and moved up in the order. The Illini need some left-handed pop.
Bad News: Closer Nick Blackburn had a 5-2 lead in the 10th inning of the opener when he walked the first two Tulane batters and later permitted a walkoff homer. Not exactly a Jay-like moment.

Good News: Jason Goldstein, fourth-year starter at catcher, batted 6 for 12 and is the team’s mainstay after declining to turn pro in favor of an engineering degree. He calls the pitches and bats in the third slot.
Bad News: UI outfielders used newspapers for bats. Veteran Pat McInerney went 0 for 8. Hartleb is banking on speedy Doran Turchin, a pickup from Wisconsin where the state university doesn’t field a team, along with Wheeling’s Bren Spillane and Texas native Caleb Kyle. The three newcomers went 3 for 21, all singles.

Sunny Florida awaits

The upcoming weekend will find the Illini in Fort Myers against Florida Gulf Coast.

Hartleb will look for more aggressive hitting, particularly from veterans Adam Walton at shortstop and Matthew James at first base, not to mention McInerney. The coach seems to be taking an experimental approach at third base and in the outfield.

“We have some young, talented freshmen, and we’ll see who can compete,” Hartleb said. “Our expectations are high. Whether it’s me, the people of the community or people across the country, everyone feels the culture we have built.”

Loren Tate writes for The News-Gazette. He can be reached at ltate@news-gazette.com.