The path won’t be easy, though, as the Wildcats are coming off winning two of three against LSU, who was No. 1 in the country last week (now No. 3).
IU dropped out of the rankings after being swept by Iowa.
Junior Christian Morris will start on the mound for the Hoosiers. He is 2-0 with a 5.04 ERA this season. While Morris is normally in the weekend rotation, IU Coach Chris Lemonis decided to leave him out against Iowa.
“We were trying to get (Scott) Effross back in the weekend rotation,” Lemonis said. “We felt like Christian matched up well with ?Kentucky.”
IU players were happy the turnaround after the weekend is quick. The bats struggled against the Hawkeyes in the first two games, and Effross fell apart in game three.
“That’s the good part about baseball, is that it gives us another chance on Tuesday to win a big game,” senior catcher Brad Hartong said.
IU has lacked the power last year’s team had with Kyle Schwarber, Sam Travis and Dustin Demuth all going pro. The comeback ability when facing a deficit isn’t there.
“I don’t think we really need any kind of extra motivation after a weekend like that,” Hartong said. “We know what we need to do, and we’re going to go back to practice and be ready to compete on Tuesday.”
The Hoosiers beat the Wildcats last season at Bart Kaufman Field, but lost in 2013 when they traveled to Lexington.
Kentucky will be without last year’s star, A.J. Reed, who was selected in the second round of the MLB draft last summer. The new leaders on offense are juniors Kyle Barrett and Ka’ai Tom. Barrett is batting .387 with one home run and 10 RBIs. Tom is hitting .377 with two home runs and 30 RBIs, along with 10 steals — twice as many as IU’s top base stealer.
Game time Tuesday is set for 4 p.m.
“This game of baseball is brutal in that you have to get up and play the next day or the day after,” Lemonis said. “If we don’t wake up, it’ll be a rude Tuesday at Kentucky, so we have to play better.”
