Baseball update and the Twitter.

After a rough performance in the pre-conference, IU seems to have righted the ship a bit.  It's still early, but the Hoosiers are 3-2 in the Big Ten, in a three way tie for second place with Purdue and Minnesota and a half game behind conference leader Illinois (4-2).  Promisingly, IU's record has come against the upper echelon of the conference.  IU has gone 2-1 against Illinois, handing the Illini their only conference losses to date, and split two games against Minnesota.  IU continues to play midweek non-conference games, and has gone 2-1 in the non-con since the Big Ten season began.  Because of IU's bad start, the Hoosiers stand at 12-17 overall. 

In my last baseball update, I noted that star picher Matt Bashore was struggling.  He has improved and has picked up a win and dropped his ERA from the mid sevens to about 6.00.  All-American catcher Josh Phegley, who hit .438 last year, is having another excellent year offensively, hitting .382 with 8 HR and a .482 OBP.  The team's leading hitter to date is true freshman Alex Dickerson of Poway, California.  Dickerson is hitting .390, with an OBP of .446 and a slugging percentage of .703.  Sophomore Jarrud Sabourin, a freshman all-American last year, is hitting .378.  For basketball fans, Kipp Schutz, who walked on to the basketball team for part of the season, is hitting .333 with 3 HR in 78 at bats. 

Pitching has been a weakness for the Hoosiers, but junior Eric Arnett has been a savior.  In 7 starts, Arnett is 6-1 with a 2.17 ERA and has walked only 14 in 54 innings.

After a non-con game against Valparaiso today, IU heads to Iowa City for a weekend series against the Hawkeyes.  As always, for more frequent updates, check out Behind the Plate. 

As for Twitter, I feel like an old guy.  I really don't "get" Twitter.  Still, for those of you who do, I have set up a Twitter (account?  site?) that will include, if I have mastered the technology, automatic "tweets" when I make a post here.  We will see if it works.  My Nick Williams post from yesterday seems to be there.