Michigan has tendered an offer for GA QB/DB Blake Sims. He’s currently listed on the board as a DB, but may move over to QB, since this article certainly seems like he is being recruited for that position by Michigan.

LA QB Terrance Broadway has Alabama as his early favorite, and most schools pursuing him are in the South. He is more of a mobile pocket passer than a spread or running QB.

Tate Forcier’s high school teammate, CA RB Brennan Clay, has Michigan barely hnging in on his top 5. The Wolverines trail Oregon, USC, Cal, and Stanford. He would like to stay a little closer to home, but the Wolverines will get visits to change his mind.

FL Slot WR De’Joshua Johnson has set his decision date: September 27, the first anniversary of the death of Pahokee teammate Norman Griffith, who was also a good friend of Vincent Smith and Brandin Hawthorne. Positive notes regarding Michigan’s shot:

Michigan already has three ex-Pahokee players on its roster, which certainly will appeal to Johnson, and the Blue Devils always have had a good relationship with West Virginia and its staff.

Obviously, West Virginia’s staff is in Ann Arbor now, and the Pahokee pipeline factor will hopefully play a role. Johnson is expected to play QB for Pahokee this year, but play slot in college.

SoFlaFootball tells us of a couple guys whose stock is on the rise, including a guy already on the recruiting board as well as one to add:

Michaelee Harris – WR Northwestern: The talented 6-foot, 170-pound receiver for the Bulls was a name many people knew, and he showed flashes of greatness on the field. The past couple weeks at the Badger Sports Passing Camp and the Under Armour Combine, he’s looked like man amongst boys.

Delvin Jones – DE/TE Palmetto: It’s hard to miss this 6-foot-6, 230-pound man child, but the agility he displayed during the Badger Sports Passing Camp was impressive. The defensive side of the ball is where Jones’ home will be in college, and this spring he must show a more consistent motor coming off the edge.

Keep these guys in mind, and it’s good to see a couple Michigan prospects’ stock on the rise.

FL WR Gideon Ajagbe sounds like he favors Florida, North Carolina, and everyone else, in that order. With Michigan’s WR situation, it seems unlikely that they start showing much interest in him.

Will Bryce Brown end up at Miami? I don’t really care, except it likely has a bearing on these guys:

The 2010 recruiting class is loaded with stud running backs and the top four, Eduardo Clements, Brandon Gainer, Giovanna Bernard [sic], and Jakhari Gore (Frank Gore’s cousin) have all listed Miami has their top choice.

Tha U probably won’t take all four guys regardless of Brown’s final decision, but they’ll certainly take even fewer if Brown ends up signing there.

Michigan is showing interest to NC OL Robert Crisp, which is nothing new or surprising, but it’s worth noting that he’s mentioning the Wolverines in his updates.

TX DT Jay Guy has been offered by Missouri (info in header). The Longhorns never offered, however, which means is recruitment looked outside the Big12. Of course, he has since committed to Cal, but I’m going to adjust VB policy and leave him on the board since he’s said he’ll take visits.

SC S DeAndre Hopkins has been named his state’s Mr. Basketball. He is also all-state for the third time. Hooray for ridiculously gifted youngsters.

FL S Marvin Robinson, who had previously asked Ohio State to stop recruiting him, now says he will visit the Buckeyes.

Posted under Football, Recruiting

Basketball UFRs will be posted sometime this week. The reason for the delay is that I’m currently separated from my DVR. I should have it available to me before the Purdue game, but no guarantees. If there’s interest I can post the plus/minus data before then. It’s the part most people said in the CIL was more interesting, and I don’t need to re-watch the whole game to do them. Let me know in the comments.

Football offseason posts will continue, though they might be slightly more theory-oriented until spring pratice begins and there’s actual news to talk about. While on the topic of spring practice, I should have a bonanza of information up during that period, and it should be a fun time to be around here. I’ll spread news about some of those items as they get a bit more solidified.

I’m hopefully going to get the podcast up and running again, since we haven’t really made one since the end of football season. Possible topics include the end of basketball season, football and recruiting (obviously the bread and butter here at VB), or baseball. Let me know how much interest there is in each of these things (and a podcast in general).

Baseball coverage will continue to go strong with new contributor FormerlyAnonymous, who never got a proper introduction. Without further ado: FormerlyAnonymous is the newest member of VB, bringing the total to 3. He’ll bring the baseball coverage, making Varsity Blue the #1 site for Michigan Wolverines baseball coverage.

Recruiting update #1 for the week should be coming tomorrow. Sorry for the delay, but baseball season has left VB up to our ears in content, and I want to make sure every post get the attention that it deserves.

Thanks for bearing with us at a (surprisingly) busy time for the blog.

Posted under Blog News

Image from netitor.com

@North Florida
7pm – February 25, 2009
Harmon Stadium
Jacksonville, FL
Media: Yet to be released (see relevant links)
Probable Pitchers: Yet to be released
Michigan Record vs Opponent: 0-0, no previous games

Overview

Michigan meets up with the North Florida Ospreys of the Atlantic Sun (A-Sun) conference in its first midweek game of the year. This will also be the first true road game (albeit trivial) for the Wolverines. North Florida finished last year 111th in RPI, one spot ahead of the Big10’s second place team (Purdue). This year, North Florida looks to make a fairly dramatic step backwards. The preseason coaches poll has them projected to finish 5th in the A-Sun (pdf). There has been speculation that with the conference expansion and the inability to make the NCAA tournament, there had been some motivation issues last year. North Florida made the jump from D2 to D1 last year, along with 4 other teams in the A-Sun, and they are noneligible for post season play. Its a stupid rule, but a rule nonetheless.

So Far This Season

The Osprey have started off the season the BankFirst Challenge hosted by Mississippi State. They faced both Northern Illinois and Mississippi State twice during the weekend. Against Northern Illinois, North Florida too both games by a score of 6-3 and 9-3. North Florida’s recaps of games are insanely confusing. Case in point:

Junior Preston Hale held his own well in the three-hole, going 2-for-3 and going 3-for-3 when leading off the inning.

UNF (1-0) had its vaunted First Coast Offense kicking on all cylinders, moving runners to the extra base on almost every chance, going 14-for-27 in advancement opportunities.

Against Mississippi State, UNF lost both games by scores of 7-1 and 9-7. Mississippi State is a lower tier SEC school, finishing 127th in RPI last year. The Osprey ended up batting .257 on the weekend against the week pitching lead primarily by centerfielder Brian Wilson (.444), left fielder Michael Smith (.400) and first basemen Ryan Puskar (.357). One the mound, the team wasn’t very pretty, the exception being starter John Atteo who threw a complete game (3 ERs).

Stars Offensive Starters

The Osprey return four starting players from last year’s starting lineup. They are lead by thrid baseman/left fielder Andrew Hannon and corner outfielder Preston Hale. Hannon was second on the team (highest returning) in batting average at .359 and RBIs at 44. Hannon was a non-factor this past weekend, only playing in one game, going 1/4 with a run and an RBI. Preston Hale batted .350 with 4 homeruns and 34 RBIs. He also lead the team with 16 doubles. Hale was also quiet this weekend, batting on .285 with 3 runs and an RBI.

Second basemen T.J. Thompson hit .317 last year, with 11 doubles, 3 triples, and a home run, but .317 isn’t that intimidating in college. The other returning starter, catcher Michael Gropper hit .317 on the year as well, but that was in limited starting time. Behind the plate, Gropper has a fairly good arm, but he still gave up about 70% of stolen base attempts. David Eldredge has started three of the games so far, but has been meh batting. He did get 4 RBIs in the first outing against Northern Illinois, but he followed that up with two games going 0/3.

Puskar has to be the big highlight so far for the Osprey. The first basemen already has two homeruns, scoring 5 runs and having 9 RBIs (all in the last two games). He and the two other outfielders, Wilson and Smith, have torn the cover off the ball. They’re both batting over .400 and have scored a combined 7 runs in 4 games.

Pitching Starters

I’m not sure who to expect to start this game. The Ospreys have five pitchers coming out of rehab for various surgeries. Any one of them could start against us. I wouldn’t expect any of the starters from the weekend. That limits it to 4 guys I know nothing about. Live with it.

Semi-Relevant Links

There may be some sort of video available from UNF’s website. It says “Watch” and it links you to the A-Sun’s IPTV. While I hope it’s on, I’ll be unavoidably detained by work. Hopefully it has on-demand video for replays. It looks like it might, I just haven’t had time to play with it.

I’ll link up to the MGoBlue audio and game tracker when those come available. The starting pitchers will probably be announced tomorrow as well, I just wanted to get this out before I head out for the day.

Posted under Baseball

Following Michigan’s official-aided choke job in Iowa City last night, the chances of this edition of the Michigan Wolverines are all but eliminated. Of course, if the Wolverines were to go on a run to end the season, taking at least 2 of the last 3 and one in the Big Ten Tournament, they would have a very legitimate argument. However, Last night’s game was considered a must-win because it was the only likely win left on the year. How did it happen?

Michigan actually got pretty good shooting throughout the first half, and in spurts during the second. When David Merritt hit two 3-pointers in one game, I thought the fates were smiling upon Michigan. Then, Manny Harris gets an egregious no-call with under a minute left, followed up with an egregiously bad call against DeShawn Sims on the rebound. Iowa is able to tie the game with free throws, and take it to overtime. Once they got there, hot shooting from them, and poor shooting from Michigan, aided in large part due to Manny Harris’s being benched (more on that later) and poor shot selection, led to a Hawkeye victory.

Officiating
I honestly don’t know what Manny Harris did to just about every referee in the Big Ten (and nation), but nobody is officiated more unfairly (at least in a negative way) than Harris. He can’t draw a blocking foul to save his life, as evidenced by perhaps the worst-called charging foul of Michigan’s season, when Iowa’s defender wasn’t even remotely close to being in position, and what should have been an and-1 for Harris turned into a 3-pointer for Iowa on the other end, keeping the Hawkeyes in the first half early. A similarly awful no-call happened near the end of regulation, where Harris was completely mugged going to the rack, and even Iowa fans were completely dumbfounded that there was no call. Compounding the incompetency of the officials, they called a horrid foul on DeShawn Sims (instead of what should have been a jump ball), effectively handing the game on a plate to Iowa.

Of course, officials aren’t perfect, and the Wolverines het their share of bad calls as well, but it’s the impact of the calls that go against Michigan that has killed us this year. The charge on Harris changed the game, because if it was called as it (quite obviously) should have been, Michigan starts turning that game into a blowout. The no-call and bad call at the end of regulation decided who would win the game, something that shouldn’t have happened. When bad calls go both ways, but the bad calls against Michigan effectively render the best player on the floor useless, it’s going to hurt one team far more than the other.

As for the “don’t whine about the officials, because the game shouldn’t have been that close in the first place” argument, that’s bullshit. Things happen that cause games to be close, even when they shouldn’t be (and let’s not forget that one call fairly early in the game likely dictated that it would be a close one). Regardless of whether the game “should” be close or not, it was. The officials, through their incompetence, then decided who would win the game. That’s unfair, either way.

Harris Benched in OT
Manny sat on the bench through the entire overtime period, leading to rampant speculation among Michigan fans and even the announce team for BTN. Nobody really knows the true answer, except it probably had something to do with a) Manny being ineffective late in regulation b) Manny saying something unwise towards John Beilein c) Manny feeling like he couldn’t contribute to the team, and/or d) Beilein feeling like Manny couldn’t contribute to the team.

Before all the armchair coaches slam Beilein for “the worst coaching decision of his career,” think about that. His career spans every single level of basketball, and multiple decades as a head coach. He knows more about basketball than any of you. He probably knows more about basketball than most of you put together. Dude knows what he’s doing, and you don’t. End of Story.

The Upshot
As mentioned above, Michigan’s bubble status has moved from “likely to be in” to “in big trouble.” The game against Purdue is one of the last chances to prove they belong, and the final two road games are important as well. This team is growing, and there is no reason to give up on them now. They weren’t expected to make the tournament when the season began (perhaps not even the postseason), so even if they fall to the NIT, I know I’ll be in Crisler Arena, cheering my ass off for them. Will You?

Minnesota and Iowa UFRs (perhaps abbreviated) coming later this week.

Posted under Basketball

To follow up the recap, I’ll be doing a weekly look at the team stats.  I won’t post any pitching graphs for until at least next week as many of our pitchers have only thrown once so far. It’s hard to see progressions from that.

A couple stats stood out to me this weekend. First off, our lead off and 2-hole hitters are both batting under .200. Kevin Cislo is batting .077 and is has an onbase percentage of .364. This isn’t going to cut it as we move forward into the season. Hopefully this was just Cislo either in a small slump, or just early season jitters. He really needs to step it up over the next week.

Anthony Toth is only batting .182 so far. Toth at least has the redeeming quality of a .582 on base percentage thats to 7 walks and 1 hit-by-pitch. Right now its Toth who is setting up the guys behind the order rather than Cislo. Toth is scoring every other time he reaches base, which is a great ratio.

Much of his run scoring is attributed to the great play thus far of LaMarre, McLouth, and Urban. LaMarre has acting more like a 2-hole hitter with the slow start by Cislo, which has been a great boost to the team. LaMarre is a good singles hitter who is setting the plate for the two bats behind him. McLouth has gotten the most credit so far with a .412 batting average and 4 RBIs. Urban is batting .471 and also has 4 RBIs. What’s more impressive is Nick’s .737 slugging percentage (bases/at-bat). He’s our only hitter who has really been getting extra base hits. I’m not sure yet if this is a good thing, as we are still winning, but you’d like to see a few more batters capable of getting a few more doubles here and there.

Dufek in the middle of those three is the team RBI leader with 5, but that golden sombrero day on Sunday sent his batting average down to .214. Berset had the same kind of weekend, batting only .100 with a run and an RBI. Lorenz has been a non-factor offensively, going 0-8 with a walk so far.

The bright spot of the bottom of the order – if not the whole order – has to be Kenny Fellows in the 9-hole. Fellows leads the team with a .500 batting average (7/14) and a .533 on base percentage. Being isolated from the rest of the hitters, Fellows really hasn’t had that much of a chance to get many RBIs or score many runs, but his average will either get him moved up in the lineup, or once Cislo comes around, he becomes a leadoff hitter at the bottom of the order.

Excel Graphs!

Here we can see the team batting average over the course of the season (each point is cumulated stats). Right now it doesn’t mean too much, but over the course of the season, I plan to track it pretty closely. The independent variable is the game number (USF =1, Purdue =2, etc). The blue line is indicative of the team batting average. You can see we hit better in the first two games, and we’ve been working our way back down in the second two. We’re not doing too badly as a team. Right now we’re hitting .288 as a team, which is a bit lower than I’d like. The average for the NCAA has been between .291 and .297 for the last ten years.

Also, another reason the average went down can be seen in the raised on base percentage (red line). We gained several more walks and hit by pitches in the last two games (18) compared to the first two games (9). These walks took away a hit or two from some of our better batters, leaving just our weaker batters accounting for more at bats.

Slugging percentage is the yellow line. Slugging percentage, as stated earlier, is bases per at-bat. Our first game had 3 doubles and a homerun driving up the total number of bases. Game three saw a double, a triple, and a homerun. For the most part we’ve been all about the singles (31 singles out of 38 hits). Like I said earlier, I’d like to see a little more pop, but as long as we stay consistently hitting singles, we will score runs.

A couple areas I’m worried about right now are base running and defense. Base running is the big problem area for me right now. We went up against four meh catchers this weekend but only went 4/12 on stolen base attempts, and we were picked off 3 times (should have been 4). I like the aggressive approach to the game, but we have to be smarter on how we go at it. Part of the reason Fellows isn’t scoring runs is because he is 0/4 on stolen bases. Each of our 1-4 hitters have also been caught stealing once (Cislo 2/3, Toth 1/2, LaMarre 1/2, Dufek 0/1).

Defense is a little bit less of a worry, but it did stick out in the Purdue game when we had three errors. The good news is that 2 of our 4 errors came from backup players rather than starters; Crank had one at catcher and Kalcyznski at third. The other two came from Toth and Lorenz. This will probably happen quite a bit as these two first year starters get used to the game. Lorenz is a real question mark at third in my mind. The kid was a high school short stop who has had limited play over the last year and is a true freshman. It may take him a full year to really get third base down.

Posted under Baseball

Normally these will be a bit shorter as I won’t have to go through as many different teams in a weekend and we will also only have 3 games instead of four.

I wanted to start with a little complaint about Friday’s multimedia. I had quite a bit of fun just trying to see anything about the game yesterday. I loaded up the CSTV Gametracker (stats) well before the game started. I renewed my long running battle with MGoBlue’s multimedia player well before game time to ensure it would be working. The media player doesn’t work with firefox (huge downer), and I am generally only 50-50 to get it working in IE. I even checked out WBCN’s sport stream to make sure I had every avenue covered.

One o’clock passed with no luck. The media player’s got nothing for the baseball game, just loads then stops. Gametracker is stuck in pregame. I go to try to refresh it by opening the link from MGoBlue, and they replaced the link by directing me to an old stat tracker (a USF vs Notre Dame game last season) at the USF site. The sports stream even let me down as they were playing the Duke vs UM basketball game in syndication. Well this is a huge suckfest.

So 38 minutes after the first pitch, MGoBlue finally gets a hold of the radio feed. It’s in the 2nd inning. I go and check the stat link at MGoBlue, its still not CSTV, but they did link to a CiL live blog on USF’s website. It started out fairly quiet, but about an hour into the game, a large contingent of Wolverine fans took over the board. It was good to see the fan showing on another site. The moderators from USF were pretty good about letting Michigan fans say their piece, but there were some posts not approved from myself that probably could/should have been. That happens in the CiL’s though.

So while the technology wasn’t all it could be, things ended out alright. We had only missed a one run USF first, and Michigan going down silently in the first two.

Notes from the Challenge

Over 50 scouts in the north and midwest regions were in attendance this weekend, as this offered them a great chance to check out prospects with limited travel.

Saturday saw what is thought to be the first game ever to be umpired by a woman in D1 baseball, much less two women at the same time (yes, I specifically linked those words as a single phrase).  As an umpire myself, those lady’s got some balls to go out their on the field with men.

The Big10 went 5-3 on Friday, on 4-4 Saturday, and 6-2 on Sunday to take the Challenge by a total margin of 15-9.  Great showing by the Big10 as a whole.  The first two days of the Challenge, most Big10 teams either just squeaked out a victory or were totally blasted out of the ball park.  Sunday wasn’t quite as close on the victories, but there were some pretty bad losses still.  Michigan came out the best looking.  Ohio State was the only other Big10 team to emerge undefeated.  Indiana went 2-1, losing only (read: badly) to St. John’s.  Purdue went 1-2 losing to both USF and Notre Dame.  Those aren’t bad losses for the Boilermakers.  Notre Dame was another extra inning game for them, their second in as many days.

USF Recap

Michigan 6, USF 5
Box Score
Win – Burgoon (1-0) Loss – Salgueiro (0-1)

Images from mgoblue.com

This game started out rough for Fetter and the Wolverines. USF jumped out to a quick lead with 1 run in the first inning from 3 singles. Fetter managed to get out of the inning by inducing a ground out and then striking out a batter, his first of 6 Ks.

The second inning also hosted a pair of USF singles, but the problems began with an error by third basemen John Lorenz. Lorenz threw wide of the bag allowing the runners an extra base. A run scored on that play, and the following single. Fetter locked down after this inning, allowing only one hit in the next 3 frames.

Michigan was fairly quiet on offense as well. McLouth did knock his first homer of the year in his first career at bat in the second inning. In the fourth, Toth walked, advanced to third on a LaMarre single, then scored on a Dufek ground out. Fontanez really had our number at the plate. He was economical with his pitch count and managed to pick off two of our runners.

Matt Gerbe relieved Fetter in the 6th, pitching 2 good innings, and being beaten up in his third inning of work. He ended up giving up 2 runs on 2 singles, a double, a walk and a hit-by-pitch. This inning looked to put the nail in the coffin for Michigan; on the CiL, I figured Coach Prado would bring in Salguiero and close out the game. At the time, I thought we were done.

Then Coach Prado made the decision to bring in his middle reliever Teddy Kaufman. Kaufman immediately loaded the bases when Crank crank’d (I’ve been waiting all off season to use that) a double, Fellows walked, and Cislo was hit by the pitch. Salguiero entered the game here.

I liked our odds with LaMarre at the plate. He is a good singles hitter and doesn’t strike out much. He didn’t disappoint, looping a single into right field plating 2 runs. We got lucky to tie the game as LaMarre should have been picked off in a first and third situation, but on a throw went wild allowing Cislo to score the tying run.

Burgoon came in for his first pressure situation of the season, tied in the 9th. He responded with a quick 1-2-3 inning right through the heart of the order. The bottom of the ninth started nicely with a Nick Urban double off the left center wall. Instead of bunting the runner to third, Maloney gambled on Chris Berset and Tim Kalczynski. Neither could move the runner over, leaving the inning in the hands of Kenny Fellows. Fellows hit a quick ground ball back up the middle, but Sam Mende, the USF shortstop could only knock it down as the speedy Urban came around to score. Victory. As I said in the preview, Salguiero can be high risk-high reward, we caught him on the high-risk appearance.

Timely hitting was the key here. USF out-hit us 11-10, but they stranded an extra 4 men on base.

Notable Stats

• Nick Urban – 3/4 2 2b, R
• Ryan LaMarre – 2/4 2 RBI, SB
• Kenny Fellows – 3/3 R, RBI, BB, 1 CS
• Jason McLouth – 1/4 Solo HR
• Tyler Burgoon – 1 IP, 0 R, 0 H, 0 BB, W

Purdue Recap

Michigan 4, Purdue 3 (10 innings)
Box Score
Win – Burgoon (2-0) Loss – Wurdack (0-1)

To start day two of the season, Michigan came out looking a little sluggish early. The Wolverines registered a hit in each of the first 5 innings, but they just couldn’t get any runs on the board.

Purdue on the other hand go on the board in the second inning in the midst of a four hit inning. Backup catcher Coley Crank also had an error in the inning while attempting to pick off a runner at first base, leading to one unearned run. Purdue would score again in the top of the 6th when Purdue outfielder Jon Moore reached on a Tim Kalczynski error at third base. Moore eventually would score after a pair of Purdue hits.

Post Game Celebrating, Image from mgoblue.com

Michigan responded in the bottom half of the 6th managed 4 hits in the inning to tie the game at 3-3. The next few innings went by quickly. Purdue started to form a rally in the 7th, but Tyler Burgoon entered the game with 2 runners on and no outs. He induced a pop out to himself on an attempted bunt, struck out a batter, and Chris Berset threw out Purdue DH Jonathan Lilly attempting to steal third.

Burgoon gave up a hit in the 9th and two in the 10th, all singles, but the Boilermakers couldn’t muster up any runs out of it. In the bottom of the 10th, Michigan got started with a Toth walk. Toth stole second on strike three of the LaMarre at-bat, forcing Purdue to face Dufek with a runner on second. Purdue elected to intentionally walk Dufek and set up a potential inning ending double play. Urban then flew out to shallow right field, Toth tagged up and just made it into third base before the ball reached the base. McLouth finished the game with a single up the middle, scoring Toth. Victory.

This victory is extremely encouraging as Purdue is the team picked as the team capable of usurping Michigan in the Big10 this year. And while we don’t play them in the season, this game will go a long way to give our guys confidence come tournament time.

Not enough praise can be directed to our pitching staff after this game. They only gave up one earned run early in the game. Kolby Wood gave us a good start, he just wasn’t helped out by the defense. Sinnery got us out of trouble when we needed him and Tyler Burgoon is on fire right now. Tyler was by and large the player of the game. I have to imagine he’s done for the weekend, and probably at least until the Wisconsin-Milwaukee game next Friday. He’s already pitched 5 innings this weekend. That’s a lot to start the season.

Notable Stats

• Tyler Burgoon – 4 IP, 3 H, 0Rs, 4Ks, W
• Mike Dufek – 2/3 RBI, R, 2 BBs
• Jason McLouth – 3/5 2 RBIs
• Anthony Toth – 0/2 3BBs, 2 Rs, 1 SBs, 1 CS
• Nick Urban – 2/5

Cincinnati Recap

Michigan 6, Cincinnati 1
Box Score
W – Travis Smith (1-0) L – Tyler Smith (0-1)

Mike Dufek’s Homerun, Image from mgoblue.com

This game Michigan came out swinging it hot. The Wolverines plated 3 in the 1st inning with a pair of walks sandwiching a single, followed by a RBI sacrifice fly by Jason McLouth and a 2 RBI single by Nick Urban. The three lead was all the M pitching staff would need to finish off the BearCats. Travis Smith gave up 7 hits and one run in 5 innings of work while reliever Matt Miller shut down the Cincinnati offense over the last 4 innings. Smith ended the night striking out 9 batters, being named Aaron Fitt’s Best Escape Artist. Not to be outdone, Miller struck out 7 while walking none and giving up 2 hits. That is outstanding.

The next few innings passed without much. The BearCats had at least one hit in each of the first four innings, but like Michigan against Purdue, they just weren’t getting runners across the plate. In the 5th, they managed to get on the board when Travis Smith began to lose his touch. After giving up a lead off double and the runner advancing to third on a fly out, Smith walked a batter and hit the next two, forcing in a run. Smith managed to get a ground ball on the following batter, ending the inning with a 4-6-3 double play. Cincinnati would never threaten to score again.

Michigan scored again in the 7th. Anthony Toth singled and Ryan LaMarre was hit by a pitch, setting up this:

This missile cleared the berm behind the right-field fence and bounced halfway up the chain-link fence that shields U.S. 19. And it got there in a hurry. I haven’t seen a ball hit that hard since Dominguez hit two massive homers for Louisville in the 2007 College World Series.

As we used to say in high school, he hit that one to the sequoias. And while Aaron Fitt might have screwed up the name on that description (he incorrectly attributes the home run to Cincinnati’s Mike Spina), I’m sure Mike Dufek appreciates the compliment. In the end, mark it down another victory for Michigan, putting them at 3-0 to start the season.

Notable Stats

• Mike Dufek – 1/3 3 RBIs, 2Rs, 2 BBs
• Nick Urban – 3/5 2b, 3b (that’s a HR from a cycle)
• Ryan LaMarre – 2/3 2Rs
• Anthony Toth – 2/4 R, 2BBs
• Travis Smith – 5 IP, 7 Hs, 1 R, 2 BBs, 9 Ks
• Matt Miller – 4 IP, 2 Hs, 0 Rs, 0 BBs, 7 Ks

St. John’s Recap

Michigan 4, St. John’s 2
Box Score
W – Eric Katzman (1-0)  L- Nick Luisi (0-1)

Katzman vs St. John’s, Image from mgoblue.com

Michigan jumped out with the lead in the top of the 1st inning when St. John’s starter Nick Luisi came out a little rusty.  He walked Cislo and Toth on a combined 9 pitches.  After being settled down by his pitching coach, he came back sharp to get LaMarre and Dufek, but a Jason McLouth infield single to third ruffled the starter’s feathers just enough for him to hand a fastball on the outside part of the plate to Nick Urban, who drove the pitch right back up the middle.  Cislo and Toth scored to put Michigan up 2-0.

Eric Katzman started for Michigan and was he ever on.  Eric only worked himself into trouble once in the third where he gave up a single, double, then sacrifice fly to give up a run,.  This was the best career start for Katzman, not to mention his longest at 7 innings.  He only allowed 7 hits, 1 run, and 4 walks while striking out four batters.  His breaking ball and side arm fastballs were leaving batters guessing and flailing wildly.

Michigan manufactured a run in the 6th inning. Chris Berset walked and was sacrificed over by Lorenz.  Fellows then lined a single to left, and Berset just beat the tag at the plate.

With Burgoon unavailable, Dufek came in for the 2 inning save opportunity.  In the 8th, Dufek breezed right through the line up.  Michigan came into the top of the 9th and was handed a run on a silver platter.  The St. John’s relievers Aremento and Cole walked the first four batters of the inning to give up a run.  Valcarcel came in and stopped the bleeding, but Michigan had a crucial insurance run to extend the lead to 3 runs.

Dufek came out to close the game down in the 9th, but faced some trouble.  After giving up a lead off walk, Dufek eventually gave up a double off the wall, giving up a run.  That would be the last base runner of the game though, as the next batter grounded out to end the game.  Victory.

Katzman was the hero of this game.  He held a team that had averaged 16.5 runs per game this weekend and held them to just one in 7 innings.  I’d include Mike Dufek as a “team pitching” effort, but Dufek’s offense was so bad today, he doesn’t deserve the credit on defense.  Mike managed to go 0/4 with 4 Ks.  Yes my friends, that’s a Golden Sombrero.  He narrowly avoided the Texas-5-gallon hat in the 9th.  He successfully fouled off 7 pitches in a gritty walk that brought in an RBI.  Very Eckstein-ish.

Notable Stats

• Eric Katzman – 7 IP, 7 Hs, 1 R, 4 K, 2 BBs, W
• Mike Dufek – 0/4 BB, 4 Ks (Golden Sombrero), RBI, 2 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 1 BB, 3 Ks
• Kevin Cislo – o/2 3 BBs, 2 Rs
• Jake McLouth – 3/4
• Nick Urban – 1/5 2 RBIs
• Chris Berset – 1/2 2 BBs, R
• Kenny Fellows – 2/4 RBI

I’ll check out the teams overall stats in my next post.  This one seemed long enough.

Posted under Baseball

Also available on MGoBlog and UMHoops. Things should get rolling shortly before the game begins.

Posted under Basketball

Or: Tim’s foray into tempo-free statistics.

Michigan takes on conference foe Iowa tonight at the awkward start time of 5PM. The game takes place in Carver-Hawkeye Arena, and can be seen on Big Ten Network.

Tempo-Free and efficiency comparison (if you need an explanation of what any of these things mean, head to KenPom’s website):

Michigan v. Iowa: National Ranks
Category	Michigan	Iowa	Advantage
Mich eFG% v. Iowa eFG% D	153	170	M
Mich eFG% D v. Iowa eFG%	155	29	II
Mich TO% v. Iowa Def TO%	22	242	MMM
Mich Def TO% v. Iowa TO%	157	218	M
Mich OReb% v. Iowa DReb%	261	159	II
Mich DReb% v. Iowa OReb%	179	294	MM
Mich FTR v. Iowa Opp FTR	322	137	II
Mich Opp FTR v. Iowa FTR	22	197	MM
Mich AdjO v. Iowa AdjD	61	124	M
Mich AdjD v. Iowa AdjO	77	70	–

Differences of more than 100 places in the rankings garner two-letter advantages, differences of more than 200 get a third.

When Last We Met…

Cyrus Tate didn’t play for the Hawkeyes, and the Wolverines left Crisler Arena with a dominating victory. Manny was Manny, DeShawn was DeShawn, and this was one of the first glimpses that Michigan fans got of CJ Lee-as-defensive-specialist, a role that has seen his playing time increse dramatically over the last few games. The roleplayer that stepped up in that game was Zack Novak, who drilled a few shots from the outside, and did his scrappy undersized white guy thing. The final score of 64-49 was even a little closer than the game felt.

Since Last We Met…

Michigan’s offense has been on a fairly continuous downward spiral. Part of that is better competition, and part of it is simply a young team with very little depth. Two things are encouraging though, and they are an improvement on defense and a stellar offensive performance against Minnesota, a team that has relied on its own defense lately. If the offensive renaissance can become a trend, rather than a one-time deal, Michigan fans will feel much better about the rest of the season.

Iowa has gotten slightly worse in most respects, largely due to Cyrus Tate’s continued absence from the team. Tate played some minutes in Iowa’s recent game against Purdue, but his ankle is still not nearly 100%, and it’s unclear whether he’ll even play, much less be the effective player he is when healthy. Guard Jeff Peterson has also battled injuries of late, and it’s unclear whether he will play.

And…?

If Tate and Peterson are both out, or even limited in a big way, this is a game the Wolverines have no business losing. Even if the two play, Michigan needs this win for their tournament hopes to stay alive in any big way, while Iowa’s season is mostly lost, unless they can scrape together an NIT bid over their last 5 games.One key factor to note: The Hawkeyes have had 8 days of rest for this game, allowing them to prepare in-depth for anything Michigan might throw at them, and also giving them a little time to get healthy.

Despite Michigan’s (slightly) improved play of late, and Iowa’s implosion (2-9 in their last 11), KenPom predicts a 59-58 Iowa win in a 56-possession game. The stakes are obvious, and Michigan fans should tune in to hopefully watch their Wolverines get one step closer to a return to the NCAA tournament.

Posted under Analysis, Basketball

Game 1

This season is going to give me a heart attack. Michigan wins its second in a row to open the season on a walk off single, this time in the 10th inning. Tyler Burgoon gets the win again, he’s now on pace to win 55 games this season, shattering the previous record by over 30. He pitched 4 innings of shut out relief, keeping Michigan close.  He was definitely the player of the game.  Maloney didn’t even warm anyone else up the down the stretch of the game.  That’s the kind of confidence Rich has in Tyler.

McLouth was a hero again this time with the walk off single. He went 3-5 in the game with 2 RBIs. That puts him at .444 for the season with 7 total bases.  Toth also did a great job working the count.  He earned three walks in the game, including one to set up the winning run.

The one area that looked ugly though was baserunning.  We were caught three times today.  We’re slightly more aggressive this year, but it has yet to pay off.  It’ll be interesting to see if we keep up this level of intensity on the base paths or if Maloney will change up his plan of attack.

As said previously, I’ll have the full recap up for the weekend sometime on Monday. We have a quick turn around as Michigan faces Cincinnati in about an hour and a half.

Game 2

Michigan finally decided to get ahead and stay ahead in this game.  We gave Travis Smith a 3 run lead before he even took the mound, and that was all we needed.  Smith and Matt Miller combined to give up only one run while striking out 16.  Mike Dufek added a 3 run homer, his first of the year, as insurance late, but even that wasn’t needed.

Aaron Fitt at Baseball America described the Dufek bomb thusly:

[Mike Dufek] hit a Chris Dominguez-like bomb in the top of the seventh, a three-run shot that gave the Wolverines a 6-1 lead. This missile cleared the berm behind the right-field fence and bounced halfway up the chain-link fence that shields U.S. 19. And it got there in a hurry. I haven’t seen a ball hit that hard since Dominguez hit two massive homers for Louisville in the 2007 College World Series.

Of course Aaron screwed up the name of the player, citing Mike Spina (of Cincinnati) instead, but the description of the homerun was spot on with Dufek’s blast.  In other hitting standouts, Nick Urban also had quite a day, just a home run shy of the cycle.

We’re off for the rest of the night.  Tomorrow is St. John’s, who scored 12 on Iowa in the first inning in route to a 18-3 shellacking, yikes.

Posted under Baseball

Image from Ezteams.com

St. John’s
February 22, 2009 1pm
Red McEwen Field (USF Campus)
Tampa, Fla.
Media:  Audio and  Stats
Home Team: St. John’s
Probable Pitchers: Eric Katzman (LHP, 0-0) vs Nick Luis (LHP, 0-0)
Michigan Record vs Opponent: 3-3
Last Series/Game: Michigan 12 – St. John’s 17, March 2005

I want to preface this with a little something: the St. John’s Baseball page is by far the worst for information. Here I am working up a preview just weeks before the season, and the sports information department has done nothing further than updating the schedule for the teams. Up until Thursday, the site also had a Windows Media Player on auto start on every page. Was it ever annoying to have Coach Kim Barnes Arico start an interview every 20 seconds. Luckily, the Red Storm installed a new video player as of Friday… after I stopped needing their website. Along with this update, it appears they have actually put some information on the team up… the DAY BEFORE THE SEASON STARTS. This team was the BigEast Champion last year, and this is as excited as they get?

So onto baseball. St. John’s is the first of three 2008 tournament team Michigan will face in the next few weeks. St. John’s has been a beacon for northern schools lately, posting three straight 40 wins seasons (generally good enough to qualify any team for the NCAA tourney). Last year, St. John’s received the lone at-large bid given to northern mid-majors with a 41-14 record (20-7 in BigEast). They won the regular season BigEast title but slipped in the conference tournament, leading to Louisville taking the BigEast automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. This year the Red Storm are predicted to finish quite a bit lower (4th in the BigEast Coaches’ Preseason Poll), but they do return seven offensive starters, two members of the starting rotation, and a majority of their bullpen.

Stars

Carlos Del Rosario Image from RedStorm.com

St. John’s returns this year with quite the offense, returning 5 of their top 6 hitters from last season. Carlos Del Rosario will be the big bat in the middle of the lineup to keep your eye on. Last year he batted .347 with a team high .563 slugging percentage as a All Big East First Team left fielder. Del Rosario lead the team in runs scored with 38.

Del Rosario was the second highest batting average on the team, right after returning junior center fielder Brian Kemp (.360). Kemp is also a threat on the base paths. He has lead the team in steals in each of the last two seasons. Last year he had 16 steals in 21 chances. Kemp is one of those pesky batters that hardly ever strikes out and tends to get hit by pitches. He was hit 12 times last year accounting for half his total walks.

The next big returner is senior catcher Danny Benedetti, who last year batted .342 with 14 doubles. That is damn good for a catcher in any league. When behind the plate, Benedetti isn’t all that strong. Last year runners stole 19 bases and were only caught 18 times. His pass ball numbers aren’t overwhelming, 5 over the whole season. If we get on base, expect him to be tested, especially if we face a right handed pitcher (more about this later).

The Red Storm’s leading RBI producer (45 on the year) returns this season in 1B/OF Paul Karmas. As a freshman last year, he tied for the most at-bats on the team (218), lead the team in total hits (68), and doubles (17). He’s thought to be sticking to just first base this year.

Sophomore Greg Hopkins also returns to take over third base (he also spent time at first base and DH). Last year, Hopkins posted a .304 batting average with 12 doubles and 5 home runs (highest of any returning starter). I fully expect these five players to make up the first 5 batters in the lineup.

Other Position Players

Gino Matias will be the returning starter at second base. The senior is a small second basemen at a listed 5’7″, which likely means even less. Despite his limited strike zone, his walk to strike out ratio is 11:31. That’s a lot of strike outs for a little guy. His batting average was only .280 last year, but he was second on the team with 42 runs scored. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him bat lead off or in the 9-hole as someone to set the table for the big bats at the top of the order. Matias does tend to try to steal more than most others on the team. Last year he was 9 for 14.

Junior Tim Morris, left handed first baseman and outfielder will be working to solidify himself in the lineup last year after being used sparingly. In 40 games, Morris made 25 starts. His .283 batting average wasn’t much to write home about, but he did have 3 home runs, 3 triples, and 6 doubles on the year. With a full season’s worth of at-bats, he could have some much more impressive numbers. What kept him out of the starting line up last year was his walks to strike out ratio, 4:35. That’s just unacceptable unless you’re Sammy Sosa.

Shortstop is a black hole currently. Junior Mike Martinez may have a shot, but there are two freshman, Matt Wessinger and Joe Pannick, who may be given a shot too. The two freshman have a size advantage on Martinez, but there isn’t much out there to indicate who will take over the position.

As for DH, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Karmas or Morris take this spot opening room in the outfield for sophomore Scott Ferrara. Ferrara had limited use last year, but he does appear positioned to be a big contributor next season. The other option would be junior backup catcher Joe Witkowski. This would provide slightly more consistency between games as Benedetti will definitely DH in games he does not start.

Pitching

This will be short and sweet. The Red Storm lost all 4 of their primary starters and their closer. Woo Rebuilding Year!

Miguel Valcarcel, Image from RedStormSports.com

St. John’s does return a total of 10 starts (by 3 players) from last year, 8 of which were by Senior Jason Cole. Cole was 3-1 last year with a 4.72 ERA. He held the second highest opponent batting average on the team at .271.

The highest opponent batting average was .309, by Senior righthander Rich Armento. Armento had one start last year, but it was out of desperation due to lack of arms available. Armento had a team worst 7.66 ERA last season in just 22.1 innings pitched.

The wild card for the Red Storm is Puerto Rican pitcher Miguel Valcarcel. The righty was 0-0 over 36.1 innings last year including one start. His 3.44 ERA is tops among returners. There has been some talk of him becoming the team’s ace this year, but that has been just speculation as far as I can tell. He had started quite a bit as a freshman, 2 years ago, with some success.

Michigan will be facing  lefty Nick Luisi.  Luisi is a redshirt senior who hasn’t pitched in over a year for St. John’s due to some major surgery on his arm.  Luisi is one of the two team captains this year for the Red Storm, but we don’t really know what to expect out of him.  For his career, Luisi is 5-3 witha  3.36 ERA over 21 appearances (7 starts).  I’d try to get more information on him, but St. John’s website is horrible for information.  The last update on his player profile is 2005.

Semi-Relevant Reading:
Challenge Overview (RedStormSports.com, don’t click on the weekly release, it’s the release from last year’s NCAA regional)

Posted under Baseball