#25 Illinois lost an ugly affair against University of Evansville tonight 4-3 in 10 innings. Ugly in more ways than one. But before we get to that, let’s talk about some of the positive things to get us started.
Dom Altobelli: 3 for 5
Dom Altobelli went 3 for 5 for the night. Not only does that extend his hitting streak to 15 games, he now has played in 12 games in which he has two or more hits. Dom’s father says the baseball program is having the Big Ten office check to see if there is any sort of record on that kind of thing.
Adam Davis drove in a run with a triple
Freshman catcher Adam Davis made a rare start tonight giving Aaron Johnson a rest with the tools of ignorance (Johnson was the DH). Like Mike Giller last night, Davis made the most of his chance as a starter, his second of the season. In the second inning with Willie Argo on second, he banged out a triple putting the Illini ahead 2-1.
Matt Dittman hit a solo homer in the 4th inning making it 3-1. Unfortunately, that would be the last run the Illini would score for the game.
The Purple Aces scored a run each in the fifth and eighth innings to tie the game driving into extras. In the top of the ninth, a throwing error brought home what would be the winning run.
It was a tough loss for John Anderson who I thought was lights out for two innings. He came in a tough situation in the eighth and struck out the batter to get us out of the inning then came back to pitch a scoreless, hitless ninth.
As for the ugly part, Casey McMurray was called out at first for interference in the ninth inning. With Bonadonna on first, he laid down a perfect bunt, hustled down to first, their was some contact between him and the Evansville firstbaseman and the ball was dropped. Before Illini fans got too excited, the home plate ump called McMurray out and ordered Bonadonna back to first.
Hartleb setting the ump straight
That caused all kinds of commotion including a visit from Coach Hartleb. A couple batters later, some arguments were being heard from the dugout. The Man in Blue ejected someone… I believe first base coach Drew Dickinson.
As bad as that was, the fans were getting really vile. Now I like to jibe the umps once in while too but tonight it was getting a little out of hand. If you want to look at it from a selfish point of view, I would think that our players (especially our pitchers) would find it distracting.
As for the interference play itself, I didn’t have a good look at it myself.. What I did see of it, I saw plenty of contact between McMurray and the firstbaseman. I’m no umpire but I don’t think McMurray was out of line…for what it’s worth.
Again, an ugly game and an ugly loss. But we have bigger fish to fry this weekend when #27 Ohio State comes to town.
More photos at the Photo Gallery.