The Bluejays were ready to play this weekend (Spomer / WBR)
It’s not supposed to be that easy, Jake.
Year after year, TD Ameritrade Park Omaha has frustrated many an All-American for a variety of reasons that are often beyond its control, but despite being armed with a bat and a helmet instead of a sword and a shield, junior college transfer Jake Holton slayed that dragon over the weekend and barely broke a sweat in the process as the Creighton designated hitter launched three home runs, including one in each game on Sunday to help the Bluejays improve to 14-6 on the season with an 8-7 and 7-3 doubleheader sweep of Illinois State.
On Sunday, Holton smacked a two-run blast in the bottom of the fifth inning to help jump-start Creighton’s offense after it had fallen into a 6-0 hole in game one against the Redbirds. A few hours later, he sent a go-ahead three-run shot halfway up the bleachers in behind the Godfather’s Pizza ad in left field to give the Bluejays the lead for good in game three.
“Weather played a pretty big factor — the wind was blowing out for most of this series,” Holton said as he tried to humbly shrug off the attention his power surge drew over the weekend. “It was just good that we were seeing the ball well as a team. We were just finding barrels and we were able to piece some balls up in the gaps.”
After rocking the Redbirds by a score of 17-3 on Saturday afternoon, the Bluejays found life at their friendly confines to be a little bit more challenging in the first game of Sunday’s doubleheader despite warnings from head coach Ed Servais.
Some base-running miscues cost Creighton a chance to get on the board in the first inning, then Illinois State shorstop Aidan Huggins uncorked a grand slam to break the game open with one out in the top of the second. The Redbirds tagged senior left-hander Denson Hull for six earned runs on six hits over three innings of work before Creighton’s offense had registered an extra-base hit.
Ben Dotzler was handed the ball after Hull was pulled, and the junior right-hander proceeded to pour cold water over Illinois State’s red hot bats. Despite entering the game with only six and 1/3 innings of work all season, Dotzler strolled through five inning on Sunday, allowing just one run on three with no walks and three strikeouts. He needed only 58 pitches to retire 15 of the 17 batters he faced.
“You have to give him a lot of credit,” Servais said of Dotzler’s performance. “When a pitcher comes into that situation his responsibility is to keep the score down and give his offense a chance. That’s exactly what he did … he gave us a chance.”
Creighton scratched a run across in the bottom of the third inning on a sacrifice fly by right fielder Will Robertson. Then came Holton’s two-run blast on an 0-1 count with two outs and a runner on second in the bottom of the fifth to cut what was once a six-run deficit in half. It was the junior college transfer’s seventh long ball of the season, and second in as many days at a ballpark that not many players consider to be a very enjoyable place to hit. It also served to send a jolt through his supporting cast on the top of the dugout.
“Once the game got to 6-3 I think our offense felt like it had a chance,” Servais said. “Jake’s two-run homer really gave us a burst of energy that I thought we needed in that first game.”
The Bluejays capped off a four-run rally in the following frame when Robertson grounded into a double play with the bases loaded and nobody out. That gave Creighton a 7-6 lead through six innings, but the job wasn’t finished yet.
In the top of the eighth, Illinois State third baseman Joe Aeilts led things off with his team-leading fifth home run of the season on the first pitch he saw from Dotzler to tie the game. Both pitching staffs combined to retire 18 of the next 20 batters, until the bottom of the 11th inning came around.
Illinois State’s redshirt sophomore closer Jacob Gilmore and his sparkling 0.66 earned run average on the season allowed a lead off double to Creighton second baseman Isaac Collins, then intentionally walked both Will Robertson and Jake Holton back-to-back to load the bases with one out after left fielder Parker Upton laid down a sacrifice bunt to move Collins over to third base. That brought senior third baseman Jordan Hovey to the plate and he promptly worked a five-pitch walk to bring home Collins and give the Jays a 7-6 win. After drawing five walks as a team over the first nine and 1/3 innings, Bluejay batters doubled that number over their next eight trips to the plate. A welcome sight to their old ball coach.
“That’s a big offensive weapon,” Servais said. “If you look at a lot of the good offenses, they do walk a lot. I think we’re getting better at controlling the strike zone and we’re swinging at fewer pitches out of the zone, even though we’re still striking out a lot.
“I’m hoping that the more we play, the more live pitching we see, the better we’ll do. The walk is an offensive weapon. I know it’s not exactly what the players like to hear about or think about it. They’d rather think about driving the baseball, but it’s a big part of the offense and it won us a game today.”
Game three didn’t offer up as much back and forth drama, but it did provide big blast by the man of the day. After falling behind 1-0 in the top of the third inning, Creighton responded quickly with a four-run frame in the bottom half of the third. It started with a base hit through the left side of the infield by Parker Upton that allowed center fielder Will Hanafan to score from second base to tie the game. Then two batters later it was an encore presentation of The Jake Holton Show. This time there were two runners aboard when the Creighton slugger left the yard on a 1-1 pitch from Illinois State left-hander Matt Walker.
That gave the Bluejays a 4-1 lead that they would not relinquish the rest of the afternoon on their way to a 7-3 win and a series sweep of the Redbirds. The three-win weekend gave Creighton its seventh win in the last eight outings after getting outscored 18-1 over the first two games of a series at Evansville in the middle of the month.
The offense produced 32 runs in three games, the bullpen was lights out with a 1.36 earned run average and a 10:2 strikeout-to-walk ratio over 13 and 2/3 innings, but the story of the weekend was Jake Holton. Including the mid-week loss to Nebraska on Tuesday night, the junior designated hitter had a slash line of .412/.500/1.059 over the first four home games of his Creighton career. He was 7 of 17 at the plate with four runs scored, two doubles, three home runs, 10 runs batted in, three walks, and just four strikeouts. His on-base plus slugging percentage sits at 1.559 after his debut week in Omaha.
Again, it’s not supposed to be that easy. But he sure made look that way.
“He’s a very relaxed young man,” Ed Servais said. “He’s done that a lot this year with the big home run. And when he hits them they don’t just crawl over either — they are deep. It’s cool. It’s fun to watch him play. I think it’s going to rub off on some of the other guys … we’re fortunate to have him, because he’s won a lot of games for us.”
Creighton has won 14 of its first 20 games on the season and Holton has been a major reason why the Bluejays have averaged 7.6 runs per game over that stretch. Through the first 20 games he’s leading the team in batting average at .372, slugging percentage at .756, home runs with eight, runs batted in with 28, and he’s second on the team with a .453 on-base percentage behind only Parker Upton.
“We knew that he had a chance to be a pretty good hitter in the fall, but we didn’t see this power,” Servais said. “He was a guy who could handle the bat a little bit, get a lot of base hits up the middle, and he’s got some good power to right-center field as he showed yesterday. But we didn’t see this kind of power. I would have never guess that he’d be at [eight] home runs 20 games into the season. Never saw that coming.”
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