Illinois had a tough weekend.
Despite winning the series opener on Friday, the Illini lost the remaining three games of the series against the Hawkeyes. That’s not to say that the Illini didn’t score runs. Sunday’s game score was 17-12 and the Illini actually had the lead up until the fifth inning.
Illinois pitchers did suffer during the weekend. After another solid performance by Tanner Roark Friday (1 run in 7 innings), the staff gave up 10, 10, and 17 runs respectively for the series.
The weekend puts Illinois dead even for the year, 17-17 overall and 7-7 conference.
Coming up: Illinois has six home games in a row. Tuesday (Eastern Illinois) and Wednesday (Blackburn) are non-conference games and Minnesota comes into town for the weekend.
Expanding on The Zealot’s Observations:
This was noticed by a buddy who is an Iowa baseball fan.
Iowa beat Illinois 10-9 in the first game of a double header in Iowa City on Saturday.
Iowa’s senior shortstop, Jason White, hit three home runs in the game, including a first inning homer and a solo walk-off home run to end the game in the bottom of the 7th inning.
Here is the rarity:
Jason White was Iowa’s lead-off hitter to start the game. AND he was Iowa’s final hitter to end the game. Now, lots of people have hit solo home runs to start a game, and lots of people have hit solo walk-off home runs to end a game. BUT, is anyone aware of another instance where a player started and ended the same game for his team with a solo home run???
In almost 50-years of watching baseball, I do not EVER remember this happening.
Anyone else???