Amid a raucous environment at Hoglund Ballpark on Friday, with a record crowd of 3,571 on hand for Kansas’ first-ever NCAA regional action in Lawrence, perhaps no Jayhawk received a warmer reception from the KU fans than left fielder Brady Ballinger.
It began when Ballinger, still recovering from a hamate bone injury suffered in the Jayhawks’ regular-season finale at BYU, was announced as a non-starter; it continued when he surprisingly took the field as a defensive replacement in the top of the seventh inning; and it reached his apex when he singled in the eighth at a key moment, turning over the order and setting up the two insurance runs that helped KU emerge with a 6-3 victory over Northeastern.
Sophomore Savion Flowers got a well-deserved start in left field and in the No. 9 hole for the Jayhawks after his heroics at the Big 12 tournament in Surprise, Arizona. Ballinger had missed those three games, and in the meantime Flowers came off the bench to deliver a walk-off home run and a couple more crucial RBIs.
But the presence of the junior from Las Vegas in the later innings on Friday was a welcome development both for the KU faithful who have adopted him as a fan favorite and for his teammates.
“I thought it was pretty cool that he was able to bounce back as quick as he did and come out there and compete and come through in a really big moment,” pitcher Dominic Voegele said.
It’s been a quiet season in some ways for Ballinger, a preseason first-team All-American according to multiple publications who had hit a team-high .353 and led the Big 12 with 56 walks as a sophomore. This year, as one of the few returning contributors from the 2025 team that brought the Jayhawks back to the postseason, he moved to left field defensively and has been one piece in a broader puzzle with a more modest .289 average, .879 OPS and seven homers.
But he’s still come through in some significant moments, perhaps most notably with a three-run home run in the ninth inning at Kansas State on April 25. And KU needed him to deliver again, albeit in a somewhat more understated fashion, on Friday.
“I came to him in the middle innings and just said, ‘Hey, can you go in and play high-level defense?’, and he’s like, ‘Of course I can,'” Fitzgerald said.
He was only needed for one putout in the outfield, but the single off Northeastern’s Andrew Wertz came at a significant moment given that KU had stranded quite a few runners on base and that Ballinger was hitting with one on and one out.
“Brady was better today than he was yesterday,” Fitzgerald said. “I think time is definitely something that’s helping him right now. If I knew he was going to hit a 110-mile-per-hour line drive to left, I maybe would have pushed the envelope a little more.”
Tyson LeBlanc and Cade Baldridge kept the train rolling after Ballinger in an inning that ultimately featured four of KU’s 10 hits on the day — and they proved to be nearly as significant as the home runs LeBlanc, Augusto Mungarrieta and Dariel Osoria had hit earlier.
Fitzgerald acknowledged that he might not have played Ballinger had KU led by a somewhat greater margin. But the situation in a one-run game in the NCAA Tournament was rather urgent.
“I think he’s a very good left fielder, and the way the ball was going to left today — he just has a lot of time out there,” Fitzgerald said. “But yeah, probably if it’s stretched out we try to hold him out completely. Glad it worked out, where I could see him get a swing off, and good for him, too, to see him get a swing off.”
Kansas left fielder Brady Ballinger secures a fly ball during the Jayhawks’ NCAA tournament game against Northeastern on Friday, May 29, 2026, at Hoglund Ballpark in Lawrence.
Kansas junior Brady Ballinger yells to the dugout during the Jayhawks’ NCAA tournament game against Northeastern on Friday, May 29, 2026, at Hoglund Ballpark in Lawrence.
Kahner Sampson/Special to the Journal-World
Kahner Sampson/Special to the Journal-World