Louisville Baseball Update

With the conclusion of summer ball and the fall semester underway, the Louisville Baseball program is gearing up for another successful season in 2023. Fortunately, fans will not have to wait until February to see the Cards in action (you can actually watch them today!) Let’s catch up on what the Cardinal Nine have been up to.

— Fans will have two opportunities to catch Louisville this fall (outside of intrasquad scrimmages) against other programs as part of the new-ish NCAA rule that allows teams to participate in fall scrimmages.

The first scrimmage will take place on September 18th in Mason, OH against Miami (OH). The game will be played at Prasco Park, home of the Cincinnati Spikes and will begin at 11:30am. Admission is free, as well as concessions and inflatables.

The second scrimmage will be played at Jim Patterson Stadium against Purdue on September 25th. A time has not been set, but should be available as soon as the football schedule is announced.

Winner gets Jeff Brohm, loser gets Scott Satterfield. Am I doing this right?

Fans will have a chance to catch both the baseball and football team (yay!) on the same weekend.

— Two intrasquad scrimmages will be played this weekend, today at 2:30pm and Saturday at 3:00pm. Admission is free for both events.

— The Pizza Bowl schedule will likely be announced in the near future, which generally takes place during the first few weeks of October. For those not familiar, the baseball team is split in two teams and they play a series of intrasquad scrimmages against one another.

It is a good opportunity to see the newcomers and take in a lot of baseball in a short period of time. In years past, the Pizza Bowl has been free to the public.

— As far as the roster goes, Austin Bode, who was competing for a catcher/outfield position this season, has transferred to Indiana. Good luck to Austin in the Hoosier state, except when Louisville plays IU next season.

— The ACC Baseball Tournament will be played on.... you guessed it. The ACC Network! I have no idea why it took so long to get this correct, but nonetheless, someone finally made a sound decision in Greensboro.

— Confirmation that Louisville would have won the 2020 National Championship. The second banner that Josh Heird needs to go ahead and hang.

— Aaron Fitt, of D1 Baseball, seems to think Louisville has a decent coaching staff.

— Speaking of the coaching staff, they are recruiting fairly well. Imagine that, right?

I’m not here to go over all of the classes yet, but some of the highlights —

Kentucky and Illinois, two battleground states for Coach McDonnell and Co., will be sending plenty of talent to the Derby City over the next handful of cycles.

— The Cards have two players in the Top 10 from Kentucky in 2023. This isn’t a particularly strong class, so the Cats can load up on in-state guys if they so choose.

— Illinois will also be sending two future Cards, one that should be very familiar to Louisville fans. The younger brother of Reid Detmers, Parker, will highlight the 2023 class. Zion Rose, if he makes it to campus, is going to be a stud. He just transferred to IMG Academy for his senior season and is ranked 76th overall by PBR.

— 4 of the top 10 players in Kentucky in 2024 are currently committed to Louisville, highlighted by the Jakes, Gregor and Schweitzer, both from right in our backyard. Gregor (67th) and Schweitzer (257th) are both ranked nationally and will likely have a tough decision to make come draft day in a few years.

— Same with Kentucky, the Illini State will be sending four players to 3rd and Central in 2024, highlighted by Cole Crafton, a two-sport athlete that would like to play both football and baseball in college. Although he does not have any P5 football offers yet, Crafton has begun garnering interest from schools like Purdue, Kansas State, Nebraska, etc. He would be huge pickup, but his recruitment is far from over.

Go Cards, Beat (at least keep it close) the Knights!