Hellerball: Iowa Baseball Wins Two of Three Against UAB

The Hawkeyes took two of three games against UAB in Birmingham, AL this past weekend, improving their record to 8-2 on the season. The pitching was solid in all three games, but the offense just couldn’t find a way to get things started on Sunday.

Normally we do these recaps on Monday, but the back end of the site apparently decided to eat the weekend recap sometime between when I wrote it Sunday night and Monday morning. We’ll make this one quick and easy.

Game 1: Iowa 4, UAB 1 (Box Score)

Nick Allgeyer (1-0) picked up the win for the Hawks, as he pitched a gem of a game on Friday. The lefty pitched 6.2 innings, giving up just one run on four hits and also striking out four. After coming off Tommy John surgery and not pitching at all in 2017, Allgeyer has been great for the Hawks this year. In his three starts, he’s pitched 18.2 innings and given up just two earned runs (0.96 ERA), really cementing himself as a quality Friday starter.

At the dish, the Hawks didn’t need a ton of help. They recorded just six hits, but drew five walks and were able to take advantage of UAB errors to push their runs across. Of the four tallies they had on Friday, three were unearned as the Blazers shot themselves in the foot with two-out errors in the third and fifth innings. Kyle Crowl had himself a nice day at the plate, recording two hits and driving in a couple runs as well, the only RBIs of the day for Iowa.

Game 2: Iowa 11, UAB 3 (Box Score)

The bats had no issues whatsoever on Saturday, as Iowa took an early lead and then blitzed UAB for eight runs in the last four innings on their way to victory.

EVERYONE PITCHED IN. IT’S BEAUTIFUL.

HawkeyeSports.com

Robert Neustrom, Tyler Cropley, Mitchell Boe, and Lorenzo Elion all had multi-hit games, while Cropley came through with three RBI. Six of the 10 Hawks to take an at-bat recorded at least one hit, while all 10 reached base in some way.

Meanwhile on the mound, Brady Schanuel (2-1) pitched a great five innings for the Hawks while picking up the win. The righty had some control issues, walking four, but more than made up for it by shutting out the Blazers. Schanuel allowed just one hit and struck out seven before making way for the bullpen, which was solid enough with a huge lead.

Game 3: UAB 4, Iowa 0 (Box Score)

I’m not sure if y’all are big believers in using up all your runs in one game, but I am, and Iowa certainly used up all their runs on Saturday because they were shut down in Sunday’s loss.

The bats couldn’t make anything happen at the plate, and this team looked like an entirely different team than what we’ve seen all season. Iowa had only five hits in the contest and didn’t draw a single walk after drawing 15 over the course of the first two games. Crowl and Cropley both had two-hit games, but the rest of the offense was unable to do much thanks to some tremendous pitching by UAB.

It’s a shame that the bats couldn’t get it going, because Iowa’s pitching staff had a pretty good day for the most part. Cole McDonald (1-1) took the loss, but he pitched pretty well - he gave up one run on five hits in his five innings of work and you couldn’t have asked for him to be much better. Grant Leonard, Shane Ritter, and Jack Dreyer all had pretty solid performances out of the ‘pen, but Kyle Shimp really struggled in his appearance. The big lefty relieved McDonald in the sixth and gave up three runs on three hits, only recording one out in the process.

On Deck

Iowa’s midweek game against the Maryville Saints was cancelled due to inclement weather due to something called snow. Seems like a minor inconvenience. Backyard Baseball 2001 had the right idea - a young Curt Schilling, who is from Alaska, said they should just paint the ball blue so it’s easier to find in the snow. Maybe they should just do that so we can play more early home games? Just a thought.

Anyway, Iowa travels to Las Vegas this weekend to take on UNLV and buddy, the Rebels sure are HOT. They’re 11-1 on the season, their lone loss to Indiana State two and a half weeks ago. The Rebels were picked to finish dead last in their conference this year, but they sure don’t look like a team that doesn’t have it. They put up a ton of runs every game and they’ll be a tough matchup for this Hawks pitching staff.