Midweek games don’t mean anything anymore in terms of making the post season, but since they do offer a chance for players to gain experience, coaches to tweak lineups, and the team to gain some momentum, I guess I can keep you informed on the midweek.  This time around it was a pair of 7-inning games at the Fish versus Eastern Michigan.  This was the third and fourth game of the season, both teams entering 1-1 against each other.

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.

Posted under Baseball

Per MGoBlue:

Steady rain in the Ann Arbor area all day today (Tuesday, April 14) has forced the cancellation of Michigan’s scheduled contest with Toledo and changed Wednesday’s (April 15) game with Eastern Michigan to a pair of seven-inning contests beginning at 3:05 p.m. No makeup date for the Toledo game has been announced.

So that’s two games versus EMU today to make up for the lost game yesterday.  Just what we need, more innings of midweek pitching.  I say that only half facetiously.  We do need to get some guys work.  I haven’t seen anything about starting pitchers, but I’ll throw my guesses out as Brandon Sinnery and Kevin Vangheluwe.  Kolby Wood threw a few times this weekend, but could be available.  The pitcher I’d like to see get this start is Mike Wilson, just to get him an easy start (7 innings puts less pressure on the starter to go deep into games).  It probably won’t happen, but its an idea.

I’m hoping we get some carnage as Michigan tries to avenge the loss at home last week.  The season series is tied at one a piece, each won by the visiting team.

Update: Miller started first game (just 2 IP).  Paul and Tim went head to head in the Michigan Baseball Tricycle race.  No word yet on who one.  I’ll have them recap later.

Michigan State Weekend

Also in that link from MGoBlue, the start time to Friday’s game has been moved to 3:05 from 6:05pm.  No audio will be available, which blows, but they will have live stats.  Their press box at MSU’s new McLane Stadium (named after Spartan alum and owner of the Astros, Drayton McLane) is just nearing the completion stage, so it appears they don’t have audio installed yet.

Posted under Baseball

Injury List

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.

Posted under Baseball