NCAA deadens the sweet spotin aluminum bats to protect pitchers

College baseball isn't as offensive anymore.

For those who love 10-9 games, this is bad news. For those who enjoy a more “pure” game, it's great.

“Hitters are complaining, so that's a good thing,” joked Iowa pitcher Zach Kenyon, whose team has its home-opening series tonight and Saturday afternoon against Western Illinois.

The NCAA adopted new specifications for aluminum bats this year, in part to help protect pitchers from potential catastrophic injury. Bats were becoming so lively that pitchers were unable to react to balls hit back at them.

New bats have a reduced “sweet spot,” the place on the bat where a hit is most powerful and clean.

“The only thing I can say about the new bats is if you hit it on the sweet spot, it'll still go,” Iowa pitcher Jared Hippen said. “I'd say these bats are more similar to wood bats, but not quite as much.”

Iowa has just one home run and is hitting .250 through 17 games, as opposed to a .297 average last season. The team earned run average is 4.80 compared to 6.03 last season.

Opponents' batting averages and ERAs are down significantly. And these are nationwide trends.

It appears four-hour marathons will be the exception instead of the rule this season, something the NCAA also wanted.

“(It's) an experiment these first couple weeks of the season with the new bats,” Iowa catcher Tyson Blaser said. “(It'll) take a little bit to get used to them.”

Iowa Coach Jack Dahm said this will be a good thing for his team, which relies on manufacturing runs instead of waiting for a three-run home run.

“You hear the bats are deader. That they're just like wood,” Dahm said. “So it's definitely going to be a bigger key (to manufacture runs). I mean, that's always important but more so this year.”

Iowa went 3-5 on its spring break trip to Texas last week.

The Hawkeyes swept Notre Dame, split with Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and got swept by Gonzaga and Texas Tech.

Senior outfielder Trevor Willis is off to a .343 start at the plate, including four triples. Junior Nick Brown was last week's pitcher of the week in the Big Ten and has a 2-1 record and 2.57 ERA in five games.

The Hawkeyes play Sunday at Western Illinois, then have six games in a row at home, including a Big Ten opening series next weekend against Michigan State.