Four wins for Big Bob!
Wednesday night, the Illinois baseball team extended their winning streak to seven games with a 7-2 win over the visiting St. Louis Billikens. Rob McDonnell won his fourth game of the year and with a 2 for 4 performance, left fielder Ryan Nagle has now hit in 14 straight games.
With the win, #12 Illinois is now 26-6-1 and is off to its best start in the baseball program history.
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Ryan Nagle’s hit streak now at 14 games
Things were a bit dicey for the first three innings. SLU scored one in the first inning and Illinois could get on base for the first two innings. And don’t forget, this St Louis team has gotten some good reviews for this year so it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibilities for them to give the Illini a good game.
Things got back to normal when Ryan Nagle doubled in two in the bottom of the third to take the lead. The Illini added three more in the fourth capped off by another Nagle rbi hit. In the sixth, two more Illinois run came across on a throwing error cementing their lead 7-2.
In case you’re wondering about Jason Goldstein, he had a double and a run scored today. He’s off to another great week after yesterday’s 6-rbi performance.
Starter Rob McDonnell struck out seven Billikens in his effort. He gave up seven hits and two runs. Nick Blackburn (right) came in the sixth inning and got the tough strikeout to get out of the inning and pitched another scoreless inning. Tyler Jay finished off the game striking out three batters in two innings.
Random Ramblings
Photos from tonight are up in the IBR photo gallery.
David Kerian’s 18-game hitting streak ended today. But as we all know, baseball is team sport and right behind Kerian is Ryan Nagle with his 14 game streak and Jason Goldstein among others picking him up. Historically, Illinois has never been a team with heroes but a team with players that all contribute. As we enter into the homestretch, that will be critically important.
Talking strategy with former Illini head coach Itch Jones
It was truly a pleasure for me to meet and chat with former Illinois head coach Richard “Itch” Jones during the game tonight. My friend Robin introduced us and I found Itch an engaging and personable man. It was only a few seconds into our conversation before we were talking about importance of lefty-righty matchups and itch was bringing up examples from his days here at Illinois.
With an amazing 1,242 wins, Jones is currently 27th on the all-time list of winningest college coaches.
Next up
Purdue comes to town this weekend. Keep in mind that it will be a slightly different schedule with Saturday-Sunday-Monday games. Saturday’s game will take place at 3pm.
Way to go, Illini!