Iowa’s new pitching coach Sean Kenny carries ‘immense experience,’ optimism about 2025

IOWA CITY — When Iowa baseball had a vacancy at pitching coach after the 2024 season, Sean Kenny quickly knew Iowa City was where he wanted to be.

“I remember talking to Marty (Sutherland) real early on in the process, and I flat-out put all my cards on the table and told him that I want to be here,” Kenny said of Iowa’s associate head coach. “This is the job I want. … I kind of went guns blazing to try to get it.”

Iowa had a lot of appealing factors. Kenny and his wife are originally from the upper Midwest and “consider this home.” Working with “people who always want to learn” like Sutherland and head coach Rick Heller was a motivator, too.

It perhaps did not hurt either that Kenny — the pitching coach at Houston in 2024 and Georgia for seven seasons before that — would be inheriting a pitching staff in Iowa City that could have plenty of potential.

“We’re on par with the teams in the SEC just from raw stuff,” Kenny said. “There’s not a team in the country that wouldn’t take Cade Obermueller, and he’s not the only one. … I think we can measure up with just about anybody on that end.”

Heller said at the team’s annual media day Iowa’s anticipated Week 1 rotation will be Obermueller on Friday, Aaron Savary on Saturday and Reece Beuter on Sunday. It was a “tough decision” to have Anthony Watts in the bullpen rather than starting, but “this could flip-flop at any time.”

Retaining Obermueller — a 19th-round selection by the Texas Rangers — was “program-changing, season-changing,” Kenny said. After all, the Iowa City native was fourth in the Big Ten last year with 11 strikeouts per nine innings and also was in the top 10 in ERA and batting average allowed.

Savary’s 2024 numbers were respectable as well, posting a 5-1 record and 4.19 ERA. Beuter, on the other hand, struggled mightily. He had a 1-3 record and 12.54 ERA as teams hit .398 off him in 18 2/3 innings.

“His stuff and his makeup and his work ethic — he’s too good for that to be who he is,” Heller said of Beuter’s 2024 season. “And he went out and made some changes, and he and coach Kenny have hit it off well.”

Iowa’s adversity on the mound in 2024 was not entirely unique to Beuter, as the Hawkeyes’ 5.79 ERA in 2024 was a significant step back from 4.19 ERA in 2023 and a 3.72 ERA in 2022. Then-pitching coach Sean McGrath’s contract was not renewed after the season.

“I was surprised to see that they didn’t line up a little bit better,” Kenny said. “But that can happen. It doesn’t take much. You get your confidence derailed, and it can get weird on you quick. ... That’s kind of what it sounds like it was.”

It did not help that the Hawkeyes ranked dead-last in the Big Ten in 2024 with 6.3 walks surrendered per nine innings — a notable regression from 5.3 walks per nine innings in 2023 and 4.7 in 2022.

“If we could all figure out that formula, we would be playing golf and being retired,” Kenny said of the walks.

Iowa baseball’s realistic ceiling in 2025 could largely be a matter of whether Iowa’s production on the mound can match Kenny’s preseason optimism.

“There were times when we could outslug people, and there were times when being down five or six wasn’t that scary,” Heller said. “With the guys that we’re running out there, I don’t think we’re going to be a team that’s going to thrive in that environment very well.”

If Kenny does in 2025 what he did at Houston in 2024, that would be a step in the right direction for the Hawkeyes. He oversaw year-to-year improvements in ERA (from 6.27 to 5.59) and strikeout-to-walk ratio (1.77 to 2.19), among other metrics. Three Houston pitchers were then drafted.

“Marty has told me numerous times that when he’s out recruiting or on the road — even when Sean was at Georgia — if there was a seat open, that’s the guy he kind of wanted to sit by,” Heller said. “Just a great guy, good person, good relationship guy, but also he brings in immense experience.”

Comments: john.steppe@thegazette.com

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