The Iowa baseball team has a banged up pitching staff as the Hawkeyes head to Ohio State this weekend in Big Ten play. Tyler Payton missed last weekend’s start against South Dakota State and fellow sophomore Calvin Matthews left last Friday’s game with a shoulder injury. He won’t pitch this weekend.
Iowa coach Rick Heller says they don’t know when Payton will be back. He says some other pitchers will need to pick up the slack. “We can’t used this as an excuse and that’s what we talked about last week…and we found a way to get it done,” Heller says.
The Hawkeyes currently sit in seventh in the Big Ten race with a 7-8 record, a game in front of the Buckeyes. The top eight qualify for the conference post season tournament. “It’s not an easy road, Ohio State is a good team, to play at their place is not easy in perfect conditions,” Heller says. He says it is good to know that if they can play well and win a few games then they should make the tournament.
Ohio State is 6-9 in the league race but six of those losses have been by one run. He says everyone thought the Buckeyes would have a lot of offense, but he says they seem to have run into some bad luck and he hopes they don’t break out this weekend.
The series begins on Saturday with a single game. The games Sunday and Monday will be on the Big Ten Network.