Baylor Baseball Drops Saturday Contest to No. 23 Indiana, 6-1

WACO, Texas – Baylor baseball (1-5) fell its second consecutive game to No. 23 Indiana (5-1), 6-1, Saturday afternoon at Baylor Ballpark.

The Bears’ lineup wasn’t particularly competitive in the loss, combining to strike out 10 times and hit seven pop-ups while picking up just four base knocks. The Hoosiers outhit Baylor 12-to-4.

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In his second career outing, starting pitcher Collin McKinney (RFr.) struck out three and allowed three earned runs across four innings pitched.

“We’re fighting for wins for sure – none of our guys are happy about this,” head coach Mitch Thompson said after the defeat. “We’re disappointed we’re not winning some games. We’re hanging there and are in some games, but we’ve got to do a better job to put ourselves in the opportunity to actually win them, and we didn’t do that today. You’re not going to win by scoring one run.”

In his second career outing, starting pitcher Collin McKinney (RFr.) wasn’t as crisp as he was last week in his debut against Oregon.

Through four innings of work, McKinney surrendered three earned runs and six hits to a talented Hoosiers’ lineup. Outfielders Devin Taylor (So.) and Morgan Colopy (Sr.) both added homers against the redshirt freshman righty.

“[McKinney] hung in there,” Thompson said. “I don’t think he was exceptionally sharp. He wasn’t as sharp as he was his first time out last week, but he hung in there. We had too many three-ball counts, too many five, six, seven-pitch at-bats; when you start doing those very often, they add up really quickly, and you end up having to get him out of the game before you’d like to.”

Lefty Mason Green (Fr.) was the first name Thompson called out of the bullpen in relief of McKinney. Green allowed two earned runs and struck out two across 1.2 innings tossed.

In the seventh, the Hoosiers extended their lead to 6-0 by adding another run, this time off righty Andrew Petrowski (RJr.).

Indiana’s starter, Connor Foley (So.), completely shut down the short-handed Bears batting order on Saturday, throwing six one-hit frames and striking out seven on 93 pitches.

In the eighth, Baylor picked up its lone run of the day. Castle lined his first base hit of the year into center field. Later in the inning, Teplanszky shot an RBI single back up the middle to cut into Indiana’s lead, 6-1.

“[The lineup] didn’t show up well today,” Thompson said. It’ll be yet to be told how much pressure [losing Hunter Simmons (Sr.)] puts on everybody. But what we have to do is each guy go up there one pitch at a time and put together good at-bats, and we didn’t have enough of them today.”

Final: No. 23 Indiana 6 - Baylor 1

W: Connor Foley (2-0) L: Collin McKinney (0-1)

WHAT’S NEXT

Baylor baseball (1-5) will finish its series at 1 p.m. on Sunday against No. 23 Indiana (5-1). The contest will be streamed on ESPN+.