Brandon Sinnery got the start in the game and he made the most of it. He lasted 6 innings giving up only 4 hits while striking out 2 (yes, that’s 0 walks). I’ll take that start any midweek.

Sinnery was also aided by some early run support. Michigan scored 5 runs in the first inning. Nick Urban had a RBI single, followed by a 2 RBI single by Chris Berset and a 2 RBI double by Alan Oaks. That kind of support offensively makes pitching much easier. I will note that Urban left the game in this inning. It was right after stealing second base. I missed the broadcast call, but I would imagine its either a leg or hand injury. If anyone has any news, drop a comment.

Matt Miller, Kolby Wood, and Tyler Burgoon combined to finish the game.  Burgoon sounded to be pitching well.  He struck out the first hitters of the 9th on 6 pitches.

After the 1st inning, the offense went into hibernation.  We did get picked off twice, but one sounded to be a clear balk.  The pitcher from WMU stepped toward the plate then submarined the throw to first.  The step toward the plate is a balk.  It didn’t get called and Berset was left confused and out to dry.  Coach Maloney gave the umpire a piece of his mind, but it didn’t change anything.

So that’s all well and good, but it does nothing for us making it to the BTT.

BigTen Tournament Bid

As you can see, Michigan is just half a game back of the now coveted 6-spot, the final team to make the BigTen Tournament.  Our “magic number” is technically 7.  We need a combination of 7 Michigan wins or Purdue losses in order to lock up the tournament bid.  The problem is we only have 6 games left.  The other problem is we play Minnesota this weekend.  Minnesota is a very good team, and we’ll get to that preview in the next few days.

The good news is we finish with Northwestern in Evanston, a team that just isn’t good.  The other good news is Purdue has a very tough schedule down the stretch, facing off with Michigan State in East Lansing where they are as good as anyone else in the conference, and then, they face Illinois who will be looking to clinch a top seed in the tournament.  I don’t see Purdue winning more than 2 games in that stretch, so Michigan has a chance to make up ground.

Going into this weekend’s games, I think Michigan takes the 6th spot with a 4-3 record down the stretch while Purdue goes 3-3, missing the post season by half a game.

Rooting interests this weekend:

• Michigan over Minnesota.  Obviously.  We need this series.
• Michigan State over Purdue.  Yet again, obviously.  I don’t think they sweep, but they need to take at least two of three.
• Iowa not to get swept in Iowa City vs Penn State.  Penn State has an outside shot at taking the 6th spot, but would take some major upsets.
• Good Weather.  We’re already behind in the loss column.  We can’t afford to not win.  While losing may be worse, not playing could be just as bad down the stretch.  There is already rain in the forecast for this Saturday (game 2 vs Minnesota) and next Thursday (game 1 @NU).

Minnesota comes to town Friday at 6:35pm.  More on them soon.

The final score is 20-1.  I’ll link to the box score when it comes out.

Travis Smith started this game for Michigan. He pitched 6 scoreless innings, giving up 4 hits and 3 walks while striking out 2. Great start (and win) for Smith, but yeah, Western isn’t a good team at all. They are #244 in RPI according to Boyds World. Their batting average ranks #224 out of 288 teams ranked by the NCAA. Regardless, it’s nice to see a Michigan starter pitch to their level and not the opposing team’s.

Mike Dufek lead the real beating of the Broncos. While wearing the #25 jersey (not sure why), he destroyed WMU in every aspect of the game. Dufek went 6 for 6 on the day with 5 RBI and 4 runs. Holy crap. That means he’s on a 8 at-bat hitting streak including his two singles to close out the OSU series. That has to be approaching a school record. In those 6 hits were 2 homers and 4 singles. Monstrous day.

As if that wasn’t enough, Coach Maloney let him pitch the 9th inning. I guess Dufek was upset he got stranded on deck, unable to go 7 for 7, to end the top of the 9th inning. Dufek unleashed the heat in the 9th, striking out the side with almost exclusively the high heat. Someone don’t stop that man!

Other offensive performances of note:

• LaMarre – 2/5  4 R, 2 RBI, 2 BB
• Urban – 2/3  2 R, 2 RBI
• Berset – 3/4  4 RBI, R, 2B
• Oaks – 2/6 3 RBI, 2 R, HR
• 12 Wolverines with a hit, 6 had multiple hits
• 8 Wolverines with an RBI, 6 had multiple RBIs

We start up again tomorrow at the Fish.  6:35pm start time for those of you in Ann Arbor.  Hopefully we see this kind of game again tomorrow.  No starters have been announced yet.

Despite the no hitter, Michigan still managed a few base runners. Twice they were erased because we tried to hit and run with 2 strikes on a batter. Both times Wimmers threw a pitch way up out of the strike zone leading to a strike’em out-throw’em out double play. Burkhart gunned Fellows again in a later inning and should have had Cislo before the strike’em out-throw’em out but the shortstop dropped the ball. So if you’re keeping track at home, we walked 4 times and reached on an error, we left only one man on base.

Its also worth noting that the middle infielders for Ohio State saved this no-no twice. Kovanda made a full extension diving catch to steal a hit from LaMarre and Engle at shortstop made a diving play to turn a single from Nick Urban into a double play. Both were awesome plays.

The offense tried to make up for it in game two knocking 10 hits, but they were no match for the Buckeye and their 15 hits. Tyler Burgoon got the start, wasn’t helped by his defense, and didn’t help himself after getting into trouble either. Burgoon gave up 6 earned runs in 1.2 innings of work. Nick Urban, playing his originally recruited position of second base, also lead to an unearned run.

Mike Wilson was the first reliever and had a good outing compared to his norm. He only gave up one run in 1.1 innings pitched, but he did walk 2. Chris Berset committed an error to advance a runner, but it didn’t affect the score as the runner would have scored on an ensuing hit anyways.

Kolby Wood was the highlight on the mound for the game. He lasted 4 innings of scoreless baseball giving Michigan a chance to comeback. Comeback they did as they rallied to bring the game back to 6-7.

Matt Miller came in to close out the 7th and pitch in the 8th. In the eighth he started the inning with a walk and a hit by pitch. Two sacrifices and a single later, 2 runs would cross the plate to give OSU the final 9-6 lead. The BigTen’s best closer, Jake Hale came in to shut us down and earn his 11th save of the season.

Kevin Cislo didn’t play in this game and I’m not sure why. If anyone has any ideas, let me know in the comments.

I’ve got a trio of exams on Monday, so this will be my review of those two games for now. I may have a better recap of things later in the week.

Highlights via BTN (ignore “Josh” Lorenz, Jake “McLooth,” and Chris “Burst”):

Don’t be surprised if the embed doesn’t work. I think Paul has the settings to where an admin has to post embeds. If it’s not here now, we’ll get it up soon.

Game 1

W – Wonderlich (4-4) L – Eric Katzman (5-3) Sv – None

Michigan jumped ahead in this one with a big 3rd inning, but the defense kept creating new ways to let State get back into the game. In the third, Lorenz made a throwing error trying to get a runner at the plate. That would have been out number two and the ensuing fly ball would be the end of the inning. Instead a run scored, and the fly ball was a sacrifice fly to bring in another.

In the fifth, Fetter made his only mistake of the game, a lead off homerun on the first pitch of the inning. In the 9th, with the lead, Tyler Burgoon fielded a sacrifice bunt and went to first, overthrowing Kevin Cislo. The ball went into the outfield. Two runs would score unearned.

In the 10th, the bullpen fell apart. Burgoon let two runners on, Miller faced one batter (a walk), and Katzman gave up a bases loaded walk and sac fly. Two runs would score and we’d blow our second save of the game. In the 11th, the winning run would reach on a Anthony Toth error. It was awful.

Offense looked good though. The bottom of the order produced very well and we were getting the timely hits. We only stranded 6 runners the whole game. Unfortunately, it takes more than just scoring runs to win ball games – you’ve got to play defense.

Notable Stars

• Chris Fetter – 8 IP, 3 R, 1 ER, 8 H, 3 BB, 6 K, ND
• Mike Dufek – 1/4 3 RBI, R, HR, SACF
• Anthony Toth – 3/5 R, RBI
• Chris Berset – 2/5 R, 2B

Notable Goats

• Defense – Toth/Lorenz/Burgoon. Errors lead to 5(!) unearned runs. Burgoon’s blew a save, Toth’s lead to the final MSU run
• Bullpen – Along with Burgoon’s error, he had two earned runs (Miller/Katzman inherited them and couldn’t finish the inning). Miller faced one batter and walked him.

Other Notes

• Lansing State Journal – Extra special win for Spartans

Game 2

W – Achter (2-3) L – Alan Oaks (0-2) Sv – Wolff(4)

See: Why We Lost MSU Game 2. I think that touches nearly all the bad I wanted to touch upon.

As for the good, Alan Oaks pitched the game of his college career. Maloney said he earned the start and did he ever make the most of it. It is sickening he took the loss in this game. Alan only gave up 3 runs in the start, one from a balk with two outs and a runner on third (ouch); the other came from a one out walk followed by 3 2-out hits. Oaksie gave up 5 hits, walked 5 and hit a batter, but he managed his base runners well, working his way out of trouble. He even recorded four strikeouts, 2 coming in an inning where he had runners on 2nd and 3rd with one out.

Notable Stars

• Alan Oaks – 7.2 IP, 3 ER, 5 BB, 1 HBP, 4 K, 1 Balk, 121 Pitches, 65 Strikes
• Chris Berset – 2/4 RBI
• Jim Abbott – Retired his #31 jersey, signed autographs for nearly an hour and a half
• Attendance – Officially 3453. Highest of the season.

Notable Goats

• See that Why We Lost Post. I don’t want to get into it again.

Other Notes

• My one regret: Chris Berset was on deck to end the game.
• The Ann Arbor News – Frustrating.

“Timely hitting … you can’t teach it. It just has to happen,” Maloney said. “… Right now for our team, things haven’t been going real well.

• Michigan Today – John U. Bacon recaps Jim Abbott’s career.
• The Ann Arbor News – Abbott Blessed to have number retired.

Game 3

W – Eric Katzman (6-3) L – Corcoran (0-4) Sv – Miller (3).

Thank god we won one to avert the first series sweep in at least 8 years. This game is everything I expected from the Michigan team this year. I expected us to hit well. I expected the pitching to be a little shaky but pull through. I expected us to take care of lesser opponents. Finally, for the first time all season, I saw Michigan baseball.

Eric Katzman, who apparently wants to earn a decision as often as possible, started this game and did fairly well. He wasn’t outstanding, but he was “good Katzman.” He didn’t have the best control, but he got outs. He just ran out of gas after 120 pitches, leading to the two runs scored. Matt Miller on the other hand was lights out for the 3+ innings of work.

Everything was clicking on offense. The top of the lineup was on base every inning and the middle of the lineup got the timely hitting to knock them in. Even John Lorenz had a great game knocking in 3 runs.

This game has me excited.

Notable Stars

• Mike Dufek – 2/4 2 R, 3 RBI, 2B
• Kenny Fellows – 3/5 2 R, SB
• John Lorenz – 2/4 3 RBI
• Kevin Cislo – 2/5 2 R
• Matt Miller – 3.1 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 7 K, Save

Notable Goats

• I got nothing. This was good Michigan baseball.
• McLane Stadium Press Box for not having audio capabilities installed yet.

Other Notes

• No news stories yet.

Wrap Up

This weekend was a bunch of gray clouds with a silver lining. We lost two of three to lowly Michigan State, a team who ranks in the 260s of 288 in team hitting. We lost to an in state rival, who we haven’t lost a series to since I don’t even know when – at least 8 years. We beat ourselves so badly in the first two games. We’ve dropped into 8th place in the Big10. We’re in jeopardy of missing the BigTen Tournament for the first time since 2002.

And then Sunday happened. While Game 3 was Michigan Baseball like I expected all season. Game 3 offers hope. Perhaps, just maybe, we finally had that “turning point” so many people have talked about the last 4 weeks. Perhaps Michigan has finally hit stride and will begin to compete. Perhaps I’m being to optimistic. Perhaps not. This game has me excited for the rest of the BigTen season.

Speaking about the rest of the season, it’s the midway point of the conference season, so I’ll be breaking down what happened so far and what we can expect to come in a post due out either later today or tomorrow. As for the week ahead, we’ve got a home-and-home with Notre Dame on Tuesday/Wednesday. Tuesday is here at the Fish. The weekend sees the Indiana Hoosiers and probable BigTen Player of the Year Josh Phegley come to Ann Arbor. More updates on those as the week progresses.

• Michigan left 14 on base this game, including 6 in the first two innings.  A season high.
• Only 3 batters had hits in this game, Berset with 2, Lorenz, and McLouth.  The latter two were pulled for pinch hitters later in the game.
• The few times we hit the ball hard, it was right at someone.  Garrett Stephens’ liner and Nick Urban’s to end the game come directly to mind – both with runners on base.
• We had a season low 5 total bases.
• Batters 1-6 of the Michigan batting order were 0/20 with 6 walks (3 were Cislo).
• We were 1/20 with runners on base (1/19 with RISP)
• 8 Ks vs a team that averages 5.4 a game. 5 of those with RISP and less than 2 outs.
• A balk with 2 outs and a runner on third (in all fairness, Alan Oaks was awesome and didn’t deserve a loss).

We are making bad teams look good.  We’re now in 8th place in the conference ahead of only Northwestern and Iowa.  We may have just been swept by the Spartans for the first time in 10+ years (weather isn’t looking good for tomorrow, much less our team).  I don’t have the ability to look that up right now.

I’m going to focus on pitching for these two recaps, as they were the obvious focus.  Several bench guys saw playing time and the lineup was shaken up a little bit to accomodate for those guys.  I’ll touch on offense quickly at the end.

Game one of the twin bill was a close one, seeing Michigan jump ahead, fall behind, then seal the win with a late inning comeback.  Coach Maloney took the doubleheader as an opportunity to get in as many pitchers as he could, starting with Matt Miller.  Miller looked good, going 2 innings with no runs, 2 walks, and a strikeout.

Kolby Wood came in to pitch in the third inning and got himself into and out of trouble.  After hitting the leadoff batter with the pitch, he then threw away a pick off attempt past first baseman Garrett Stephens.  He eventually would strand the runner at third.  In his second inning of work, Wood would also give up a solo-homerun.  The outing wasn’t that bad for Wood.  He did get into some higher counts (41 pitches, 25 strikes), but that’s kind of been his norm.

Enter Mike Wilson, exit Mike Wilson.  In just 1/3 of an inning, Mike induced a pop up, walked a batter, then gave up a two run homer, tying the game.  Short leash for Mike, but the team was in to win.  Wilson’s still nowhere near his 2007 form.

Brandon Sinnery came into mop up the inning, giving up a hit, but not allowing the runner past first base.  His second inning saw some trouble.  After the EMU second baseman reached on a fielding error by Mike Kittle (playing second), Sinnery walked the next batter.  He would strikeout the next EMU hitter, but was pulled for Burgoon.

Burgoon, in his first game back from the minor shoulder injury, did well.  He induced a fly out on 2 pitches to end the 6th, and ran into trouble to start the 7th.  He’d hit the lead off hitter.  The next batter tried the sacrifice bunt, but was unsuccessful, bunting the ball hard back toward Burgoon who wheeled and went to second.  The final batter would then ground into a double play.  Burgoon would get the win.

Want pictures? OK:

Game Two’s pitching didn’t go so hot.  The first clue should have been that Jeff DeCarlo was announced as the starter.  While I harp on Mike Wilson sometimes for his lack of success, DeCarlo is quite a bit lower on my “trust him to make outs” ladder.  Jeff’s struggled a bit the last year and a half.  He’ll see spot appearances, but he doesn’t seem to be threatening to make too many legitamate starts any time soon.  This game was just a continuation of his struggles.  His 1/3 of an inning went like this: homer, groundout, single, homer, single. His ERA jumped from 17.18 to 24.75… yikes.

Travis Smith then came in to try and stop the bleeding.  At that point, only 3 runs had scored.  Smith would give up another single to put runners at first and third.  A wild pitch later and Michigan was down 4-0 after just half an inning.  Smith’s next inning went smoother, allowing just one walk.  Michigan tied the game in the bottom of the second, just to see the lead disappear on a Andrew Marshall solo homerun for the Eagles (his second of the game).  Smith gave up two more hits that inning, but wouldn’t give up another run.

Only two pitchers had a higher ERA than Jeff DeCarlo heading into this game, one was Kevin Vangheluwe (the other is team high 27.00 by Losorelli in one appearance).  He would come in relief next.  He, like DeCarlo, wouldn’t make it out of his first inning of work.  His inning:  single,  bunt single, 3-run homer, walk (I think I’d pull him here?),  single (definitely here, bullpen slow to warm up?), fielder’s choice, strikeout, single.  Five of his baserunners would score, one of his -luckily?- scored because of an error making it unearned.  The ERA jumped from 19.18 to 23.63.

Speaking of that error, it was the first batter Matt Gerbe would face, grounding a ball to shortstop.  Toth couldn’t field it cleanly, leading to a run.  Matt did get the team out of the inning with another ground ball on the next batter.  Gerbe would finish the game (3.1 innings), including two 1-2-3 innings in the 5th and 6th.  In the 7th, Gerbe allowed of a leadoff single then walk.  After a sacrifice bunt and a hit by pitch, he would induce two groundouts, one of which scored a run. Michigan lost 11-5.

So this game went much worse from a pitching perspective, but I think if you’d told me DeCarlo was starting and Vangheluwe would throw in relief, I would have expected some bad to happen.  Take away their 8 earned runs, and this is a totally different ball game.  It’s hard to defend the home run ball, and EMU had 4 in this game, accounting for 7 runs.  Those hurt.

Offensively, game one was really bad.  We managed 5 hits, 2 by Fellows, 2 by Toth, and one homerun by Mike Dufek. Beside those three, the rest of the bats never got going.  The good news was we only struck out 3 times in the game, a season low (previous season low was 4 Ks at EMU in the second game of the season series).

Game two went a a little bit better, but still wasn’t great.  No one really stood out as above the average, eight different Wolverines each registered one hit.  LaMarre had a home run, and Chris Berset had a double of his own.  Toth stranded 3 runners; LaMarre had 2 (team total of 7).  We also struck out only 6 times, which is two below the season average.  I’ll take that.

Burgoon and Berset both returned to the team in this doubleheader, and it couldn’t come at a better time.  Burgoon restores a little bit of order to the bullpen, giving us a solid option to close or set up a closer.  I think we’re headed to a closer by committee.  No one has really dominated since early in the season.  Berset brings better play to the catcher’s box and into the lineup.  He went 1/4 this weekend with a double and a walk.  As I said in the CMU recap, I think this is Berset’s team to take over.  He has the chance to create be the spark over the next few weekends to turn around the poor play.

Other Notes:

• Kevin Cislo sat the doubleheader out, just making one pinch hit appearance.
• Non-everyday players Garrett Stephens (1B), Mike Kittle (2B), Nick Urban (RF/2B), Coley Crank (RF), Tim Kalczynski (3B) all made extended appearances on defense
• Coach Maloney on the season (I’m becoming less hopeful on the pitching):

“I think game one here today is an indication of what I thought this team would be. Coming up with a clutch hit like Dufek’s home run, making some great defensive plays and scrapping together some runs when it mattered most to win a ballgame. What I didn’t anticipate from this team was the way we played in game two and that has been all too familiar a scenario for us this season. We have not pitched well enough. I am still hopeful, as crazy as it may sound, despite watching us that we will turn this thing around. I know that these guys are better than that. I am hoping that at some point, they just let go of themselves so they can compete like I know they can.”

• The Daily – Live Blog.
• Tim & Paul in the Trike-ening.  Paul didn’t center his weight over the front tire, therefore reducing his normal force and decreasing the coefficient of rolling friction (You sound like you were a Michigan engineer – Paul).  Timmy Kal let him know his flaw, but it was too late.

The Daily has been covering baseball really well this year.  In an article in today’s edition, staff writer Ryan Kartje listed some injury notes:

Sophomore relief pitcher Tyler Burgoon threw Wednesday for the first time after injuring his shoulder against Oakland on Mar. 31st. Junior catcher Chris Berset, who started in 37 games last season, played catch before the game. He suffered a broken thumb on his throwing hand against Jacksonville in February. Maloney said both players should be ready for action next weekend against intrastate rival Michigan State.

The article also talks about how inexperienced Vangheluwe is as a starter.  He, like Lorenz, missed his entire senior year recuperating from surgery (including removing a rib).  Good stuff, go take a peak at the article.

Baseball Recruiting

Don’t expect any recruiting board for baseball, but I will pass along the news that the baseball team has signed a preferred walk on in left handed pitcher Rick Samuel of White Lake, Michigan’s Lakeland H.S.  He’s the 7th player to sign with the Wolverines this year, and may or may not be the last.  We are currently slated to lose at least 6 seniors, but could use some depth at other positions.  Due to the slow nature of baseball recruitment, I’ll recap the recruits after the season is over.

Also, for those wondering, its not uncommon for many of the players to be preferred walk-ons.  I believe D1 baseball teams are only allowed 11.78 scholarships, which means most players only get partial scholarships, with two or three big name players potentially getting full rides.

The game featured 7 Wolverine pitchers making a trip to the mound. Coach Maloney was seeking some sort of spark from the starting rotation and started freshman Kevin Vangheluwe, but, as many other things with Michigan baseball lately, when it rains it pours, completely dousing any chance of a spark to happen. Kevin couldn’t make it out of the second inning, giving up 4 runs while only recording 2 outs.

Things never got much better after that. Wilson gave up a run in 1.1 innings, Matt Miller gave up 2 runs (1 earned), and Brandon Sinnery gave up 3 runs in 0.1 innings. The good news is Travis Smith looked good in the short 1.1 inning appearance, as did Kolby Wood and Alan Oaks throwing a perfect 2.2 innings to finish the game.

Defense wasn’t much prettier. Along with a throwing error on a double play chance by Toth and a throwing error on a bunt single by Lorenz, there were several reported brain lapses on the field. Nick Urban was pulled from third base after failing to cover third base, allowing a pair of runners to advance. Five(!) balls hit to the outfield should have been caught but weren’t. One I give Fellows a break for as he slipped on the turf that was still wet from the snow last weekend, but the other four could – and most probably should – have been caught, including the play in this picture from Liesa Thompson at the Ann Arbor News:

That's a catch that should be made.

We didn’t do well behind the plate either. Kalczynski had his 9th passed ball of the year. He bobbled another transition on a base stealing attempt, dropping the ball. He would eventually be replaced by McLouth during the middle of that same inning during a pitching change. That pitching change? It was on an 0-2 count when Maloney pulled Sinnery. Pulling a pitcher on 0-2? What’s going on?

The offense was anemic this game. Despite Alan Oaks great outing on the mound, his plate appearances were atrocious. He went 0/4 with 2 Ks, a foul out to second base, and a 4-6-3 double play. He stranded 4 runners on base to end innings.

The 6 hits Michigan mustered came from 6 different players. Fellows, Cislo, LaMarre, Dufek, Crank, Kalczynski each had a hit-a-piece, Cislo and LaMarre’s being doubles. The team only managed multiple hits in one inning, the 8th, where they scored just one run. The run in the 9th came by walks and errors on behalf of CMU.

If you want a positive in all this, we only stranded 6 runners (would have been 2 more if not for a pair of grounded into double plays) and we only struck out 7 times… only 7 times….

In defense of some of the hitting, Coach Maloney made an attempt to stir up the lineup in this game. The starting lineup looked like this:

• Fellows, Kenny lf
• Toth, Anthony ss
• Cislo, Kevin 2b
• LaMarre, Ryan cf
• Dufek, Mike 1b
• Urban, Nick 3b
• Crank, Coley dh
• Oaks, Alan rf/p
• Kalczynski, Tim c

Some of this makes some sense. Toth has raised his average to a point where he would look attractive in the 2-hole. Fellows is getting on base enough and has the ability to steal bases; he’s alright for a 1-hole, but not the most attractive choice. Alan Oaks dropping down makes sense with the bottom of this line up, too. Kalczynski makes sense in the 9-hole as well as he has been doing a little bit better about getting on base.

What’s Going On?

Michigan isn’t the same team its been the last few years. We lost the best team we’ve had since the CWS runs in the 80s. We have a group of 5 walk ons that lead the team. Two of them were either cut or virtually told to go elsewhere for playing time:

Coach Rich Maloney cut Kenny Fellows from the University of Michigan baseball team during his freshman-season tryout. Two years later, Maloney told Tim Kalczynski he could transfer if he wanted playing time.

We have several players playing out of their original positions. Urban was a walk-on middle infielder turned outfielder who is occasionally thrown into third base. Kalczynski was once a walk-on outfielder playing catcher and occasionally third base.

Add in our youth and inexperience, and you’ve some problems. Lorenz is a true freshman who didn’t even play his senior year of high school ball. McLouth and Crank are making the best they can of their early playing time, but neither has been that consistent. They’re freshman.

Once you start looking at the scholarship players, many of them are just in their first year of starting as well. Michigan lost Nate Recknagel, Adam Abraham, Jason Christian, Leif Mahler, and Zach Putnam this off season from the offensive starting lineup. Berset, Dufek, and LaMarre contributed a lot, but they weren’t the leaders. They will hopefully be that one day, but right now they are just sophomores and juniors.

Kevin Cislo is the player I’m looking to right now to pick up the team. Maybe this is why Coach Maloney moved him to the three hole. Put him right in the middle of everything and see what happens. Let him try and spark the team. Let him lead. The problem with this is Kevin isn’t a three hole hitter. Unlike Iowa who can throw Toole in the center of the lineup to generate offense, Michigan doesn’t have the same team build. We have power hitters, they need runners on in front of them who can move themselves into scoring position to be hit in.

Pitching isn’t much different than the offense. We don’t have experience. What experience we have in the starting staff is either very good (Fetter) or meh (Wilson). Katzman is in his first season as a starter. Smith hasn’t had a full season of starts yet and he’s just a sophomore. In relief, we don’t have that dominate guy. As much as I hoped Burgoon would be that guy, he’s not.

We’re a young team; we’re an inexperienced team. We’re a not that great team. It is what it is.

How Do We Fix It?

This is the toughest question on Maloney’s mind I’m sure. I think we have two options at this point.

1) We need an upperclassman to step up and really take over this team. He needs to call a players only meeting and say all those right things, but more importantly, he needs to back it up with his play on the field. He needs to be the enforcer, not Coach Maloney. He needs to be the one picking up guys. He needs to be the one getting on a guys case when he’s out of position.

During the preseason, and even into the first few weeks of the season, I thought Chris Berset was going to be the one to do this. I thought this was Chris’s team to take over. Maybe its the catcher in me that makes me feel this, but the catcher that runs much of the show. Sure its probably coincidence that we went from 7-2 with Berset to only 11-9 without him. I think his value to our lineup cannot be matched from Crank and Kalczynski, neither can his leadership. I’m not sure when he’s due back, but its not soon enough.

2) Our hitting coach (whether that be Maloney and Ust) has to step up his game. Something has to be done about our strikeout rate. Something has to be done about moving runners into scoring position and knocking them in.

The worst thing that can happen now is the team starts putting too much unnecessary pressure on themselves. That will just force more bad habits.  As Coach says:

“They may even be trying more than they should be trying. I don’t know. But right now it’s more psychological than it is anything else. It’s not the opponent – we are the opponent. We’re beating ourselves.”

We’ll see how we do against Illinois this weekend.  Wake up boys, its time to produce.

Getting ready to board the bus for Iowa and hoping the weather man is wrong about the 2 inches of snow there Saturday!

As a last little bit of information going into the series, I’ve compiled all our current players past performances against the Hawkeyes.  The chart after the jump is listed first by Michigan Hitters, then followed by Michigan Pitchers.  The player order is by first appearance.  So for example, Cislo was the only player to appear in the 2006 series, so he shows up first on the chart.

I’m not sure if I’ll have this for each Big10 opponent, but I’ll try to get it out.  It’s time consuming to gather it information and then chart it all out.  I had planned to do the Purdue team against Michigan, but yeah… no.  Besides, who cares about them anyway?

A few of the stand outs:

• Cislo is batting .500 for his career against the Hawkeyes with 8 runs and 14 hits in just 11 games.
• Chris Fetter is 1-1, but has a complete game (7 innings) with 18 Ks in 19 innings.
• Ben Jenzen is 2-0 in 3 appearances, pitching 5 innings while giving up 4 runs (only one earned).
• Burgoon earned his first career win against the Hawkeyes in an extra inning game last year, going 2 shut out innings striking out 2.
• As a team (just current players), we are 11-1 against the Hawkeyes.

Full Chart after the jump

Times have been adjusted as I thought it was Mountain Time, not Mountain Standard Time, which is currently Pacific Daylight Time. Arizona doesn’t use daylight savings time. Ridiculous.

Arizona

from arizona.edu

10pm Friday, 7pm Saturday, 2pm Saturday (all EDT)
Jerry Kindall Field
Tuscon, AZ

Media Game 1: Live Stats, Audio, and Video ($*)
Probable Starters Game 1: Chris Fetter (2-0)
Media Game 2: Live Stats, Audio, and Video
Probable Starters Game 2: Eric Katzman (2-1)
Media Game 3: Live Stats, Audio, and Video
Probable Starters Game 3: Travis Smith (2-1)
Series:  Arizona leads 42-12
Last Meeting:  Michigan 3, Arizona 4, 2008 Regional in Ann Arbor

*Video requires at least paying a $9.95 monthly subscription for buy it — as it is automatically renewed each month.  It also requires you to download Microsoft Silverlight 2.0.  I really wish Michigan would expand its sports coverage to this level.

Overview

The Arizona Wildcats are a middle of the road Pac10 team, picked to finish 5th by the coaches, with a current record of 8-7 including a three game sweep by #9 Georgia and a 2 game sweep by #11 Oklahoma State.  Those two sweeps are why they still sit so high in RPI (#61) despite the record.  The Wildcats haven’t really played anyone I would say that compares closely to Michigan.  Most teams they have played are either top 15 or bottom 150.

Offense

Unlike many of the teams Michigan has faced so far, Arizona doesn’t have that one guy that makes the offense click.  They, instead, use a combined team effort to produce runs.   They currently have 9 batters of the 13 players seeing regular playing time with batting averages over .300.  Due to the inconsistency in the lineup, I’m not sure what to expect going into the weekend.

I imagine second basemen Rafa Valenzuela will keep his lead off role this weekend.  He is leading the team in hitting at .378, but he’s only started in 10 of the 15 games so far.  He’s not much of a threat on the bases, currently 2/3 on stolen base attempts.

The current RBI leader for the Wildcats is third basemen Jett Bandy with 15.  Bandy has played in 14 of Arizona’s 15 games, batting anywhere from 3rd to 6th.  He’s only batting .296, but he also leads the team in doubles with eight.

At the bottom of the order, Bryce Ortega has provided consistency at shortstop in his 14 starts.  Ortega has hit .327 with a team high 17 runs scored.  He’s second on the team with 13 RBIs.

Bobby Coyle is the only player to start every game this season.  The centerfielder is only batting .284 with 10 RBIs and 12 runs scored.

Pitching

Starting pitching has been a real weakness for the Wildcats this year.  I can’t make heads or tails of their rotation so far, and the Arizona website hasn’t announced probable starters yet either.  Last week saw their coach try two new starters, neither of which did particularly well against #11 Oklahoma State.

Coming into the season, Arizona was looking to set up the rotation around three pitchers, Preston Guilment, Matt Veltmann, and Donn Roach.  So far on the season, they have a combined record of 3-5 and 6.30 ERA.  Guilmet has had the best success of the three, going 16 innings in 3 starts, posting a 1-1 record and 5.76 ERA.  He also sports a 7:15 walk-to-strikeout ratio.  The other two are averaging just over 3 innings per start.

Freshman Kyle Simon also made three starts for the Wildcats.  In his three starts, Simon has gone 10 2/3 innings, allowing 13 runs (9 earned), on 17 hits and 5 strike outs.  He also had a long relief appearance against Georgia, going 4 innings giving up 8 hits and 3 runs.  His ERA currently sits around 6.75.

Relief pitching has been used early and often this season for Arizona.  Cody Burns, a right handed senior, has already made 12 appearances this season.  His numbers haven’t been the best this season, giving up 8 earned runs in 15 1/3 innings pitched with 8 walks and 21 strike outs.  His overall appearances have been hampered by poor fielding to the tune of 6 unearned runs.

Jason Stoffel has been the bright spot in the bullpen.  As their closer, he has seen work in 9 games, striking out 22 in 16 innings.  He has three saves on the season, and has been impressive in each outing.  His 1.60 ERA is by far the best on the team.

Outlook

I think Michigan may be able to win 2 of 3 in this series, which should really help with the RPI.  The game I’m least optimistic about is the Eric Katzman start.  I’m not saying I expect us to lose, but its the game I’m least certain about.  Chris Fetter should be his normal self and I’m really liking what I’m seeing from Travis Smith lately.  The bullpen will be well rested as we didn’t have a midweek game.

It will be interesting to see who catches most of the games in this series.  As it stands, Berset is currently listed as fourth on the depth chart at catcher.  I can’t say I saw that coming, but with the emergence of Coley Crank and Jake McLouth as offensive forces, and Timmy Kalcynzski’s leadership, Berset has seen himself drop from solid starter to 4th string in a matter of weeks. Chris Berset remains out with a broken thumb (as pointed out by JJ in the comments).  Crank hit extremely well last week, McLouth could make an appearance there, or team captain Timmy Kalczynski, who is listed as probable starter in the weekly release may be used.  [updated after comment made by JJ]

Other Note

Saturday is “Club Arizona Kid’s Day” which sounds violent, but is actually a pretty good deal for any person under the age of 18, as tickets are $1 and other activities are held throughout the ball park.

Michigan 9, North Florida 8
Box Score
Win – Wilson (1-0) Loss – Lott (0-1) Save – Burgoon (1)

Michigan just missed their first weeknight upset at the hands of the North Florida Osprey. In front of 762 fans in a meh attempt at a White Out, Michigan prevailed by the narrow margin of 9-8. If it weren’t for North Florida’s pitching collapsing a bit in the 4th inning, Michigan would have lost this game pretty badly.

Game Summary

North Florida jumped out to a early 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first on three straight singles and a sacrifice fly. Brandon Sinnery, in his first career start, managed to escape the inning from a great throw and relay, Urban to Cislo to Lorenz to get a runner taking too aggressive of a turn around third base. Chris Berset also had a throwing error in the inning trying to catch a runner stealing. His throw got away from him, but the runner would have scored anyways.

Sinnery was yanked after giving up a double in the 2nd inning with two outs. His final line was 1.2 innings pitched, 2 ERs on 6 hits with a strike out. That’s not what Maloney was looking for by any stretch. Hopefully the freshman picks it up when the midweek games pick up during the conference season.

Gerbe, who replaced Sinnery, pitched the next 1.1 innings, giving up a single, double, and sacrifice fly in the 3rd inning. He managed to only give up the single run but he was done for the night.

Michigan came in to the top of the 4 down 3-0. Ryan LaMarre lead off with an infield single to short stop; it was a slow roller that the defender had no shot at making a play with. With a full count, LaMarre went with the pitch, and Dufek grounded to the second baseman, who had no play on LaMarre. One out. McLouth then knocked a pitch to left field toward the line. LaMarre slipped rounding third, but probably wouldn’t have scored anyways. The throw went to the plate, allowing McLouth to advance to second. After an Urban fly out, the UNF pitching staff walked the next three batters forcing in two runs. With the bases still loaded, Kevin Cislo knocked a three run single to center. Cislo advanced to second on a passed ball then stole third, setting up a Toth RBI single. Michigan was up 6-3.

Michigan would tact 3 more runs on in the 5th inning. McLouth knocked his second home run of the season out to lead off the inning. After a Nick Urban single, Chris Berset knocked his own homdinger. That put Michigan up 9-3, to what one would think would be a safe lead.

Well not so fast my friend, North Florida added a run in the 6th from a pair of doubles. In the 7th, Michigan started with an error on Mike Dufek – its never a good sign when you give up an easy out to start an inning. Its worse when you walk the next batter, which we do. Wilson gets a ground ball that looks to be a double play, but we only manage to get the out at second. After giving up another single, Mike Wilson is pulled for Matt Miller. Miller gives up a walk and a single before striking out a batter. Enter Burgoon. After a walk and a hit by pitch, Burgoon finally gets Michigan out of the inning with a fly ball. It’s 9-8.

From here on out, it was pretty quiet. Michigan stranded a runner on third in the 8th. The Osprey just couldn’t get anything going against Burgoon down the stretch.

Well that was closer than it should have been.

Positives

• We didn’t get caught stealing in either of our two attempts
• Nick Urban extends his hitting streak to 5 games
• A win is a win
• This is the best start we’ve had to a season since 1991

Negatives

• Mike Wilson was Mike Wilson yeah of 2008, getting by in ugly ways
• Kenny Fellows ends his hitting streak at 4 games (still batting .412)
• Mike Dufek continued his struggles going 0/5 with 3 runners left on base
• That was way too close for comfort

Notable Players

• Chris Berset – 1/2 2 Rs, 2 RBIs, HR, 2 BBs
• Jake McLouth – 2/5 R, 2 RBIs, HR
• Kevin Cislo – 2/4 R, 3 RBIs, 2B
• Tyler Burgoon – 2.1 IP, H, BB, K

Next game: Friday @ 1pm vs Wisconsin-Milwaukee at the Jacksonville tournament. Preview will be out tonight.

The Varsity Blue crew kind of threw me off by posting the USF preview so early, so I’m going to continue that pattern with this preview. I’ll have the Cincy post tomorrow with a general post on the Challenge and what it means to Michigan baseball, as well as college baseball in general. This being a conference opponent, there is a little bit more detail in this than normal. It will hopefully get a little more specific once we get to the actual conference season, when games really start to count.   Wordpress is also giving me formatting issues, so bear with for the time being.   –FA

Image from purdue.edu

Purdue*

*not a conference game
February 21, 2009 11:00am
Naimoli Complex
Clearwater, Fla.
Media:  Audio and  Stats

Home Team: TBA
Probable Pitchers: TBA vs Kolby Wood (RHP, 0-0)
M Record vs Opponent: 129-52
Last Series/Game: Michigan won 2 in the Big10 Tournament, last regular season match up was the 2007 series Michigan won 3 games to 1.

Overview

As stated above, this game, despite being against a conference opponent, is not a true conference game. Due to Louisville choosing to play Florida is a better venue than the Challenge, each Big10 team is playing one game against a conference opponent. The way the Big10 schedule works out, Big10 team misses out on one conference opponent per season, much like football does with the two opponents rotating off the schedule every two years. So, for a second year in a row, Michigan does not face Purdue during the regular season. To make up for the differing number of teams from each conference, the Big10 teams opted to face the conference opponent they would not be facing during conference season.

Purdue is coming off a very successful 2008 in which they finished 2nd in the Big10 regular season and was the last competitor to lose in the Big10 Championship. This year they are expected to rival, or even usurp Michigan as the winner of the Big10. Purdue may have lost stars Ryne White and Josh Lindblom, but they return nearly every other player on the team. They are by far the most experienced, and perhaps the best team on paper. That being said, as far as winning the Big10 is concerned, Baseball America puts it this way: “The Boilermakers last won a Big Ten title about the same time the Cubs won a World Series, in 1909.”

Michigan holds a fairly sizable lead in the historical series, as seen above. When we shorten the spectrum to the last 10 games, Michigan leads 8-2 spanning back to 2006. The two losses came closing out the 2006 series and opening the 2007 series (one at school’s home field).

Full preview after the jump…

Stars

Image from Purdue Sports

The second most hyped offensive player this year in the Big10 appears to be junior, switch-hitting, third basemen (and backup catcher) Dan Black. Black had a break out season last year knocking 18 home runs (2nd in Big10) and 70 RBIs (2nd in Big10) while batting .320 overall. Black also had 15 doubles to add to his 131 total bases (3rd in the Big10). On defense, Black is a meh third baseman. He committed 13 errors last year for a .936 fielding percentage. That’s not great, but his bat created far more runs than his fielding gave up. Look for Black to be hitting three hole.

In the outfield, Purdue returns top hitter Brandon Haveman. Haveman had a batting average of .379 last year as the leadoff man. Haveman isn’t you’re prototypical leadoff man who is a singles machine. Haveman also had his fair share of extra-base hits with 16 doubles, 5 triples, and 2 home runs. He is also a threat on the bases, taking 12 of 18 attempts last season. On defense, he is pretty solid in the outfield. He is shifting from right to left field this year, but I doubt that change has much impact on his play. Haveman didn’t have the arm of a right fielder, so this should help by opening up right field for a new player.

Completing the top of the lineup in the two hole is senior second basemen Ben Wolgomat. Wolgomat started last year as the backup second basemen then exploded when given the opportunity to bat second behind Haveman. Wolgomat ended the year batting .368 with 44 runs in 45 starts.

Other Starters

Image from Purdue Sports

Jon Moore is the returning center fielder for the Boilermakers. The senior will be making his third season a full time starter. As a junior last year he saw his average go up from .275 the year before to .321, providing much more protection for the heart of the order ahead of him. Moore came alive in the Big10 Tourney last year batting .462. His defense is also pretty solid, having 5 outfield assists and only 3 errors.

Junior shortstop Nick Overmyer also returns to the field this year for Purdue. Overmyer wasn’t all too impressive last year, hitting only .280 at or near the bottom of the order consistently. This year he is expected to have some stiff competition coming from freshman Barrett Serrato ($, Baseball America).

The starting catcher for the third season in a row is Eric Nielsen. Nielsen is one of the more Academic All Big10 players but holds his own behind the plate. His .288 batting average isn’t too exciting. His 40 strikeouts on the season last year is a big reason why. Unless we draw a lefty for this game, I imagine we’ll test his arm early and often. Nielsen only caught 12 of 52 stolen base attempts last year.

Alex Jaffee appears to be slated for right field this season after fully recovering from foot surgery last off season. Jaffee missed most of the 2008 season in rehab, but did manage 17 starts late in the season. He and Jonathon Lilly may be competing for that slot as well as the DH position. Neither has had huge success at the plate, but both have seen their fair share of game experience (over 115 games each).

Pitchers

Unfortunately, Purdue hasn’t announced probable starters yet, so we’re going to breeze through a few of them with limited stats.

Matt Bischoff is a beast. As a freshman in 2007 he earned Big10 Freshman of the Year honors. As a sophomore last year, he was First Team All Big10. The kid has great talent. He will start this year as Purdue’s ace. I doubt we see him as he will most likely start in their first game against Cincinnati, so we’ll skip over the important stuff. Just know we will see this guy in the Big10 Tourney in 4 months.

Image from Purdue Sports

Behind Bischoff is a trio of left handers in Cook, Jansen, and Sestak. If I had my guess on who starts against us, it’d be Matt Jansen. Jansen was 4-3 last year with a 5.44 ERA in 16 appearances (9 starts). He generally occupied the Saturday opener last year. He’s had success against Michigan, all two innings he’s pitched. Last year he ended the year with a .309 opponent batting average and a 24:23 walk to strike out ratio in 51 innings. Jansen has however shown some flashes of brilliance, including his 8-0 shutout win over OSU last April.

My second choice of starter would be Kyle Cook. Cook had slightly better success in 2008 going 5-3 with a 4.65 ERA in 13 appearances (8 starts). His walk numbers were a little lower than Jansen’s, but still weren’t great.

Neither of these two pitchers went that deep into ball games. Jansen could routinely make it into the 5th inning. Cook tended between 3.5 and 6 innings per start with no consistency. As Saturday starters, that’s not a horrible thing, but with the end of Saturday double headers and this being a nine inning game, watch to see how much stamina the starter might have, especially this early in the season.

Relief

Purdue lost their top reliever/closer Josh Lindblom this past off season, so it is one of the few question marks on their roster. The leading candidate to close is junior Kevin Cahill. Cahill is a hard thrower, but he hadn’t quite grasped location as of last season. In his 14 appearances, mainly as the set up man, he posted a 4.25 ERA over 27.1 innings pitched. He did have 22 strike outs over the year and a .229 opponent batting average.

Reports out of Purdue expect Drew Wurdack to step in as the set up man. Wurdack pitched only 20.1 innings over 12 relief appearances last year. The numbers weren’t pretty either, including a 5.25 ERA.

Charts

Once we get to conference season, I’ll be breaking down batters vs. individual pitchers, but since this doesn’t quite carry the same importance, we’ll stick with just batters vs team pitching. At this point, Michigan has only seen 9.1 innings of returning Purdue pitchers anyways due to the Boilermakers not being on our schedule during the past season.

What’s notable here is Cislo’s .476 batting average against Purdue pitching. LaMarre’s .333 average isn’t including that many at-bats, but he does have a home run. Berset struggled in the Big10 tournament last year. This was part of the reason Recknagel took over some of the catching duties in the NCAA tournament. The other four batters all made a defensive substitution in a Saturday game during the 2006 season. None of these guys were regulars then, and both teams let their scrubs play since Michigan had such a commanding lead.

This table goes to show the depth of experienced upperclassmen Purdue has returning this year. They have nearly three times as many at bats against us as we do against them. Something else this chart says is how good of pitching we’ve had the last few years against Purdue. Purdue has averaged a strike out nearly once in every 4 at bats. That is a great number for Michigan and a testament to Zack Putnam, Chris Fetter, and Adam Abraham (whom have logged the most innings against these Purdue batters). It’ll be interesting how our pitchers go after the middle of their line up. Outside of Arizona and the Mets, this may be the best line up we face in the nonconference.

This chart gives us a more of what we already know. Michigan has been good against the Boilermakers. Chris Fetter has flat out owned them. He has an 1.50 ERA in three starts. Combined, the returners sport a nice 2.80 ERA and 6.62 Ks/9 innings.

The Purdue pitching staff hasn’t seen much of Michigan due to the year without playing. I wouldn’t put too much stock in those ERAs outside of Cook. The others were short relief appearances.

Semi-Relevant Links

Purdue Weekly Release (pdf)