@Iowa

from hawkeyesports.com

5pm Friday, 2pm Saturday, 2pm Saturday (all EDT)
Duane Banks Baseball Field
Iowa City, IA

Media Game 1: Live Stats and Audio
Probable Starters Game 1: Chris Fetter (3-1) vs Nick Brown (1-1)
Media Game 2: Live Stats and Audio
Probable Starters Game 2: Eric Katzman (3-1) vs Josh Hippen (1-0)
Media Game 3: Live Stats and Audio
Probable Starters Game 3: Mike Wilson (1-0) vs Wes Freie (2-1)
Series: Michigan leads 97-42
Last Meeting: Michigan sweeps 4 at Home in 2008
Last Michigan Loss: 2007 at Iowa (Michigan took 3/4)

Overview

Iowa is a team expected to finish near the bottom of the Big10 this year. So far this season they are 8-10, with an RPI of 235 (boyd’s world). They do have one good win at Louisville, the middle game of their 3 game set, winning 2-1.

The Hawkeyes have used many looks for their batting lineup so far in an attempt to create some offensive cohesion. They, like Michigan, have been hitting pretty well, but have struggled in putting it together to score runs. Overall, the Hawkeyes rank #138 in team batting average and #119 in scoring.

Pitching hasn’t been good. The team ERA is 6.73, good for 216th in the NCAA. Strikeouts also come at a fairly slow pace, just 6.6 per nine innings. This team, much like several others we’ve played recently, just isn’t that good.

Even Coach Dahm has begun using things like “it doesn’t matter if we win or lose.” He did a video interview with the Daily Iowan full of quotes coaches from struggling teams have.

The Field

The Hawkeyes play at Duane Banks Baseball Field, situated on the west side of campus near Carver Arena and Kinnick Stadium. Home plate faces north by northeast, meaning with the north wind coming in this weekend, not many balls are going to carry out of the park. The dimensions of the field are nearly symmetrical, with the lines being 330 feet, the power alleys at 375 feet, and straight away center being 400 feet. The fences are a little tall at 10 feet, but that’s not all that unusual. Along with the aforementioned wind, rain and even possibly snow is expected to be in the forecast on Friday and Saturday. This shouldn’t help our power numbers either.

They’ve only held 3 games at home before this series. The home opener did not have an official attendance, but game two was reported at just over 570 fans, which is well below the 3,000 person capacity. It shouldn’t be too intimidating.

The Team

Lineup

Leading off, at least most often, is third basemen Kevin Hoef. Hoef is a senior who has a career batting average of .321. Last year was his big break out as a junior, batting .357. This is his fourth year as a starter, but it’s also been his roughest stretch at bat. He is currently batting .237 and he’s been hit a NCAA high 14 times in 17 games. So while the average has been low, his on-base percentage of .410, aided by those hit-by-pitches, has kept him in the lead off spot. Hoef is also a threat on the bases, currently 7 for 8 in stolen base attempts. Hoef has also struggled a little bit on offense this year, already having 6 errors. I’m not sure what’s up with this; his defense has been much better in years past.

Iowa Depth Chart against Coe on Tuesday

Behind Hoef will be shortstop Justin Toole who generally in the 3 spot, but sometimes bats second or even lead off. Toole has been Iowa’s star on defense and offense for the last few seasons, but the senior has never been awarded higher than 3rd team All Big10. Jason Christian at Michigan was a big reason why. Regardless, Toole hit .395 last season, good for 5th in the conference. This season, Toole still has a very good batting average, coming in at .353 with a team high 16 runs. He’s also collected 13 RBIs. On the base paths, Toole will try to keep the defense on its toes. So far he’s 5 for 8 on the season.  Toole is coming off BigTen Player of the Week honors.  Along with scoring 9 and driving in 9 RBIs, he had four multiple hit games.  His OPS for the week was 1.210, yikes.

The clean up spot is senior designated hitter Wes Freie. Freie is another Hawkeye to hit the starting stage last year with break out numbers, hitting .342. This year he is currently batting .333 with 14 runs, 15 RBIs, and 4 homers.

Behind these three, and even in the 2 hole, the order changes often. The top RBI producer for the team is senior first basemen T.J. Catalado with 19 on the season. He also is tied for the lead in team home runs with 4. His batting average is also pretty good at .304. Catalado has batted 6th 12 times and 5th 4 times.

Center field appears to be locked down after a rotating cast. Sophomore Kurtis Muller, listed as 5’0″ and the starter currently. He’s only batting .242 and has a 1:8 walk to strikeout ratio, surprising for a little guy. He is 3/4 stealing bases.

Junior right fielder Ryan Durant also has started consistently for the Hawkeyes. So far this season, he is batting .339 with 9 runs and 9 RBIs. In left field, the Hawkeyes start a rotating cast. One is a sophomore with a name I absolutely think is fake… Zach McCool. McCool is hitting .293 this year, which isn’t too impressive, but he does have a pair of homers and a triple this season. You might even see him at second base this weekend.

Other people in the rotating cast of left field and second base include freshman infielder Mike McQuillan who is only batting .263 with 8 runs, freshman infielder Chett Zeise who is batting .355 with 7 runs and 2 RBI, or sophomore Travis Willis who is batting .118 with 2 home runs.

Starting Pitching

The Hawkeyes have started seven different players this year on the mound. Their rotation last week featured Nick Brown, Micheal Jacobs, and Wes Freie (yes, the same Freie who is listed as the DH).

Freie has the best numbers out of the three, currently with a 2-1 record and 5.40 ERA in 4 starts. Over his 18 1/3 innings pitched, he’s given up 26 hits, 8 walks, and struck out a team high 20. Ten of those 26 hits have been for extra bases, which hopefully bodes well for Michigan. His most recent start was this Sunday in a win at Western Illinois. Freie went 5 innings only giving up one run on 6 hits, 2 walks, 4 strikeouts, and 2 hit batters.

Micheal Jacobs has the most starts on the team with 5, but they haven’t been all that successful. He’s currently 1-4 on the year with a 7.00 ERA. The lefty has had some tough luck on the mound. This season, his defense has already hung 7 unearned runs while Jacobs is on the mound. He hasn’t helped his own cause either though, allowing an opponent batting average of .384. Jacobs isn’t going to strike out many (well, unless Michigan continues its current strikeout pace); he only has 7 Ks on the year. His last start was a loss at home against Western Illinois. He lasted 3 innings, giving up 5 runs (all earned) on 8 hits and a walk.

Nick Brown earned his way into the weekend starting rotation two weekends ago, just in time to face a ranked Louisville team. In his first start, a loss, he lasted 5 1/3 inning, allowing 10 hits for 6 runs (5 earned) with 4 walks. In his second start, he picked up his first win at home against Western Illinois, lasting 6 1/3, allowing just 5 hits, 4 runs (3 earned), with a walk and four strikeouts. He seems like just the sort of pitcher that has their career day against Michigan lately.

Bullpen

The bullpen actually has a couple decent players in it for Iowa. Josh Hippen (LHP) and Patrick Schatz (RHP) are the two primary relievers. Schatz has the better ERA of the two at 2.25, and also sports a 1-0 record in 16 innings. He has an even 8 walks and 8 strikeouts. He also has had trouble with his defense, who has given up 6 unearned runs while on the mound.

Hippen is the stereotypical starter build at 6’3″, and has the strikeout numbers too. In his 18 innings, he’s struck out 13 batters. He’s only given up 6 total runs (all earned) and walked nine.  Update: Hippen has been promoted to the Saturday starting spot for this weekend according to the weekend release, which will hit the shelves soon).

Outlook

As bad as Iowa is, they can get on base and score runs. Michigan has made it a habit lately to make meh pitchers look pretty good. I still think Michigan takes every game in the series, but they will be much closer than I would want us to be playing. Ultimately, it will just come down to “can Michigan move the runners around and score them?” I’ll take the optimistic yes.

Other Note(s) for the Weekend

BigTenNetwork airs its first baseball game of the season on Friday at 7pm, Michigan State vs Illinois. The BTN will also air their Saturday game at 4pm. Michigan will make its BTN debut next week against Penn State. I was hoping they would stream the baseball games, or at least offer them for replay, but I’m not sure what the plans are at BTN.com.

Weekly Releases from the SID are now going to semiweekly in order to get more information out.  Midweek games will be covered on Tuesdays (unless travel pushes it back) and weekends will be released on Thursday.  This is to make sure information stays fresh.  I think its a net positive change.  I went looking through old releases earlier in the week to start my preview for Iowa, and let me tell you, the stuff the SID office is putting out now is amazing compared to just 2 years ago.

SEBaseball.com released their updated projection of the field of 64; Michigan is unsurprisingly not in it.  The good news for the Big10 is two teams did make it in, so we at least are getting some respect from the big boys down south.  The two teams you ask?  Ohio State gets a #1 seed (!) and hosts (!!!).  They are the lowest 1 seed, but wow, I didn’t expect that.  Minnesota is labeled a #2 seed as the at large bid, but they get placed in the Cal State Fullerton (overall #1 seed) and play Arizona as a #3 seed.  I think we can all atest that Arizona is no cupcake at a #3 seed.  Illinois is probably just outside of the tournament right now, but has a resume to have them in consideration.  The Big10 only sent one team to the tourney last year, but did send 3 in 2007, including Michigan, Minnesota, and Ohio State.  They’d love to do it again.

Posted under Baseball

In this blogcast we talked to the excellent Tim Williams of The Blog That Yost Built, the place to go for Michigan hockey information.  We discussed Michigan’s season and their draw in the NCAA Championship Tournament among other hockey topics.

Enjoy:

 

 Blogcast with YostBuilt [23:54m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Posted under Blogcast, Hockey

An intrepid Bleacher Report author has gotten his hands on “leaked information” (read: has probably posted something he read on a premium message board) that Nick Sheridan and David Cone both sustained injuries during practice yesterday, though it’s unclear how long they’re out (if each does indeed have a broken bone, it’ll probably be until the end of spring).

This is obviously bad for several reasons, most notably because it leaves Tate Forcier as the only QB on the roster who was deemed worthy of a scholarship offer out of high school. The only other QB who took snaps in practice Saturday was #18, deemed not even important enough to have his name on the spring roster.

I foresee Justin Feagin, Carlos Brown, Terrence Robinson, et al probably getting a few more reps at QB than they were planning on this spring, if only because there are practically no breathing bodies left.

EDIT: I should probably note (though it’s obvious from no link) that there is no confirmation of this from a free source.

UPDATE: Someone from the football program (presumably Coach Rodriguez) is going to be holding a press conference tomorrow presumably to address the injury rumors. Team coverage and whatnot forthcoming.

Posted under Football, Personnel, Spring Coverage

Game Recap

W – Sikora (1-0) L -Brandon Sinnery (1-1)

Well, the Mid Week bug struck early, as Michigan loses to Eastern Michigan at home. Chantel Jennings at the Daily had a chance to interview Mike Dufek before the game and Coach Maloney before and after the playing, it seems the guys might have been a little too overconfident.

“We know that we are supposed to win,” [Mike Dufek] said. “It’s only a matter of us focusing and playing well.”

“I even talked to the team before the game,” Maloney said. “I said, ‘Let’s understand that anyone can knock you off.’ Maybe this will be a lesson learned for later days.”

Ouch.

by Leisa Thompson, The Ann Arbor News

I was working during the game and have had trouble getting MGoBlue’s media player to load, so straight box scoring on this one. While Michigan did out hit the Eagles in this one, we were stranding runners and getting killed on the base paths again. Michigan left 10 runners on base, and had another 4 either picked off or caught stealing. The running game had been fairly solid for us of late after a shaky start.

Sinnery didn’t have too poor of a start. Yes, he did give up the 2 run home run, but those runs were the only ones he gave up in the first 5 which is an decent start. The last run came after he was pulled in the 6th inning. With runners on first and second, EMU manufactured the run by using the sacrifice bunt two times in a row (one being a suicide squeeze). It’s a tough way to give up a run, but it happens.

On offense, we got on base quite often, but we couldn’t get anything going. Along with the base running problems mentioned earlier, we also weren’t hitting well with runners in scoring position. The team went 0/5 with runners in scoring position, and 0/3 with an RBI with a runner on third. The one RBI came from a Cislo ground out that allowed Kalcynzski to score. Poor base running and no hitting when runners are in scoring position means you have to live and die by the long ball. No extra base hits today. Death.

Notable Stars

• Anthony Toth – 2/4
• Bullpen (Miller/Burgoon) – 4 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 4 K

Notable Goats

• Cislo/Fellows/LaMarre/Dufek – Each left 2 runners stranded
• Cislo/Fellows – picked off trying to steal (caught stealing)
• Kalczynski/Urban – picked off not trying to steal

Side Note

• Fellows moved to right field for this game, supposedly for defensive purposes as it was rather windy at the Fish yesterday. This is not expected to be a permanent move.

Extra Reading

• The Daily – Overconfidence Hurts
• MLive – Great Showing by EMU
• MGoBlue – Standard SID recap

Michigan Insider Podcast

Coach Maloney continued his Michigan Insider Podcast on WTKA. They touched a lot on the recent news of Barry Larkin and Branch Rickey entering the NCAA College Baseball Hall of Fame. Coach said they are working on improving the baseball history portrayed in the lobby of the Fish. They are working on getting more pictures and history up on the walls to show just how rich the history of the program is.

Maloney also walked through the Big10 season. He tabbed Iowa as a scrappy team that always takes games from us when we don’t expect it. The weather may be an equalizer to help them. He expects Minnesota, Ohio State, Indiana, and Illinois to all compete for the Big10 crown without anyone really running away with it. Our lack of experience may cause problems, but he’s hopeful it won’t show its ugly head too often.

Other News

Chicago MLB Wolverines

As Brian@mgoblog linked in mgo.licio.us, Chris Getz and Clayton Richards both made the Chicago White Sox roster for the season. While Brian says this should make all you Chicagoland fans White Sox fans, I will offer you Cubs fans a bone. Jake Fox is one of the first call ups for the Cubs if anyone in their outfield is injured. He won’t be starting like Getz will, but at least its something.  Also, there is some speculation that Getz’s starting is just temporary as the White Sox are preparing for a bigger prospect to take his place.  These two, and potential third, combine with J.J. Putz, ex-closer for the Mariners now with the Mets, and Rich Hill, pitcher with the Orioles, to be the four Wolverines on MLB rosters to start the season.

Hall of Fame

Going back to what was mentioned in the Michigan Insider Podcast, Michigan has two guys making the list of inductees this year. Branch Rickey was not just a great player at Michigan, but also was the general manager who brought Jackie Robinson to the major leagues to break the color barrier. His bio via the College Baseball Foundation:

Among the 2009 Hall of Fame class is one Vintage-Era inductee and the first “small school” inductee.

Branch Rickey, player and coach from Ohio Wesleyan and Michigan is the Vintage-Era inductee. The Vintage-Era designation is for those who played or coached prior to 1947.

Barry Larkin is probably the more notable inductee to most of you. Larkin was a long time staple at the Cincinnati Reds, but before that, he taking Michigan to the College World Series:

Michigan’s Barry Larkin was a two-time first-team All-American shortstop. He was the first two-time Big Ten Player of the Year and in 1983 he was the Big Ten Postseason Tournament MVP. He twice led the Wolverines to the College World Series and finished his career with a .361 batting average.

Iowa Game Time Changed

The opener to the Big10 season is Friday at Iowa. The game has been moved from 6pm to 4 pm CDT (7 to 5pm EDT). The weather looks to be windy and rainy.

Posted under Baseball

A series exploring the commitments (and subsequent decommitments) of Michigan’s lost members of the class of 2009.

The Commitment 
DeQuinta Jones may be in a dead heat with Pearlie Graves for the “most spectacularly-named decommit award,” but he runs away with the “weirdest commit story” consolation prize. The first Michigan fans even heard Jones’s name was when he committed to the Wolverines out of the blue while he was at LSU’s summer camp. After a few days of bickering between the premium sites (TheWolverine said he was committed, GoBlueWolverine insisted that it wasn’t a done deal – of course when it was revealed that he did indeed commit, GBW “broke” the story and claimed they were the first on the scene – nice integrity, guys), Jones was considered by all to be verbally committed to the Wolverines.

The Decommitment
Jones was nominally committed to the Wolverines up until the end, though later in the process, Michigan was lucky to be counted among his top 5. Jones opened up towards the end of the summer, taking visits to various schools in the Southeast. Even bringing Jones on campus a week and a half before Signing Day couldn’t firm up his commitment. On Signing Day, he switched from Michigan to Arkansas, and sent the Razorbacks his letter of intent.

The Impact
Jones was the more highly-rated of Michigan’s two lost defensive tackles, and considering the need along the D-line, this was a big loss for Michigan. Jones’s recruitment also shined a light on the annoying inability of high school seniors to understand the word “commitment.” I understand that you want to reserve your spot at some school, any school, but if Michigan is barely hanging on in your top group of schools, you are “committed” to them, you’re “considering” them. If that’s the case, giving an official decommitment would be the more honest approach to your recruitment. Of course, with the coaches of all the pursuers aware of the situation, it’s more frustrating for fans than anyone.

Posted under Football, Recruiting

So I put out the Stat Watch a few days too early as the NCAA released their first set of weekly statistic releases. While I can’t get you a direct link to the Michigan page (or haven’t figured out a way so far), it isn’t hard to get to it by starting here. To get to the Michigan page, go to Division I, week of 3/23/09, Team All Statistics. We’re team #61 (as sorted by batting average). Click on Michigan and you’ll see how we stack up in 25 team categories, and how our team leaders stack up in 32 individual statistics. Most individual leader boards top out at about 300 players. Katzman and Fetter both show up in a few of the pitching categories while Cislo, Dufek, LaMarre, Urban, and Toth all show up in the offensive categories. I’ve included some of the more notable rankings for Michigan in the chart to the right.

Something else I noticed, Arizona thanks us for that 6 GDP game, as they now rank first in double plays per game.

Yes, I am using this statistic site to distract me from the fact that we lost to Eastern Michigan today.

Posted under Baseball

Removed:
As predicted earlier this month, TX DE Reggie Wilson chose the Longhorns.
IL RB/WR Rayvonte Rice says he’ll give up football to focus on basketball. 

Added to the board with offers or interest:
SC S Brashaud Breeland (info obvious from header). 
FL CB Mark Deas (published by GBW).
A two-fer: GA DT Michael Thornton and TX QB Dylan Thompson are both hearing from the Wolverines.

From the same article: recruiting fluff on FL OL Brent Benedict, who holds a Michigan offer. It doesn’t appear he has any plans to make a spring visit to Ann Arbor.

From the Free Press, regarding Ohio prospects with interest in both Michigan and Michigan State (admittedly, a very specific set):

Latwan Anderson (Lakewood St. Edwards) is one of the top safety prospects in the nation for the class of 2010… Anderson is in the process of narrowing down his list and plans on having a final five. Two of the schools he says will definitely be on his final list are the Spartans and Wolverines.

Derrick Bryant (Columbus Brookhaven) lives in the shadow of Ohio State, but he may not end up in Scarlet and Gray… Bryant was offered early by Michigan and the Spartans recently followed suit. The Wolverines are seen as the team to beat at this point.

Defensive lineman Darryl Baldwin (Solon) is another big-time prospect that both the Spartans and Wolverines are after… The big obstacle with Baldwin will be the fact that unlike the above prospects, the Buckeyes have already offered him. The amount of recruits from Ohio that get an Ohio State offer and don’t end up playing for Jim Tressel can usually be counted on one hand.

So: Bad on Baldwin, Good on Bryant, Neutral-to-Good on Anderson.

This is slightly old news, despite my not having heard a word about it from any other source:

Northwestern is returning to the belly of the Big Ten’s beast to try and lure away another Columbus (OH) recruit. Rivals.com reports on how interior lineman, Travis Jackson, has put NU in his top five along with Stanford, Michigan, Vanderbilt and Cincinnati after visiting the Evanston campus for junior day recently.

I’ve honestly not heard of the guy, but if the Wolverines are in his top five without an offer, he may be a prospect down the road.

SC DE Brandon Willis wins state weightlifting championship.

Another day, another article on VA QB Phillip Sims that doesn’t mention the Wolverines. He’s close to being removed form the board.

OH LB Marcus Rush has named Michigan his leader (info in header).

The always-excellent Jim Stefani gives a look into Michigan’s early returns in the 2010 class, where things might go from here, and even a couple prospects to keep an eye on in future classes.

Posted under Football, Recruiting

Junio-to-be wideout Toney Clemons has left the Michigan football program, as I speculated when he was absent from practice Saturday. Clemons cited a desire to play in a more pro-style offense, where he feels he would get more opportunities to catch the ball and make plays. Perhaps most importantly, he didn’t try to slam the coach or school on the way out, simply citing his philosophical differences.

He intends to transfer to a school in one of the other BCS conferences, where he’ll sit out for a redshirt year before returning to the field in 2010. Clemons was one of my favorite recruits a couple years back, and I was already rooting for him to become a difference maker on the field. I’ll continue doing the same at his new destination.

Scholarship count and depth charts updated in the Personnel HQ.

Posted under Football, Personnel

Reminder: EMU game is bumped up to today (Tuesday). Live Stats and Live Audio available through mgoblue.com.  Preview and recap of the last meeting with EMU games are available.

In this edition of stat watch, we’ll catch back up with team hitting, and get caught up on offense. Pitching numbers are still rough, but we’ll at least take a look at the leader boards and look at the potential starting rotation for our upcoming 5-game weeks of the conference season. I’ll have a mix of Excel Graphs and ManyEyes (individual statistics). At this point, I can’t get the ManyEye’s visuals to embed, allowing you to play with the data and charts. So instead, its back to the basic Excel graphs.

Team Hitting

Above is the game by game batting average (blue), on-base percentage (red), and slugging percentage (yellow) for the team as it has accumulated over the season. As you can see, we appear to be reaching a fairly consistent level of production over the last 7 games or so. Game 12 is the last game of the Siena series, so everything after that would include the Arizona series, @EMU, and the IPFW series.

Our current batting average is .321, on-base percentage .410, and slugging percentage of .495. These are pretty solid numbers. The average batting average for the NCAA (last assembled in April 08) was approximately .292. Over the last few years, the NCAA average has been in the mid .280s.

As far as slugging, I have yet to find an NCAA-wide statistic, so I’ll compare it to the last few years of Michigan. The last five years final numbers are .489, .478, .417, .429, and .413. We’re still early in this year, but we look to be doing rather well for ourselves in the power department, at least compared to previous teams.

When looking at other Big10 teams, we can get a slightly better idea of where we compare this year. Keep in mind that there is a definite difference in competition faced.

I have the table sorted by RPI (as of Sunday morning), so theoretically, the teams the have done well against better competition should be at the top. Michigan places 4th in the Big10 in batting average, 4th in on-base percentage, and 4th in slugging percentage. Go figure we’re currently 4th in RPI. It makes sense as Ohio State has been destroying every pitching staff they’ve seen (mostly inferior teams). Indiana is scoring a ton of runs, but they are giving them up at a startling rate (check out this football score of 28-17 in a loss to Northern Iowa). Overall, I’d say we’re doing pretty well.

RBIs vs Left on Base and Pitching after the jump.

Read More…

Posted under Baseball

Quick note first,  the EMU game is at 3pm TUESDAY (bumped up a day to get the better weather) at the Fish. No preview for EMU as one has already been done here. You can check out the recap of the last game against EMU here.

Poll Watch

Yeah, we’re not in the polls anywhere other than in the receiving votes section. RPI took a slight upswing with the 4 game winnings streak over some meh-rated opponents. The next 4 games (EMU, Iowa, Akron, & Oakland) won’t really offer a chance to pick up big ground in RPI that quickly. Iowa is technically the highest ranking in that group at an RPI of 238. The others range from 258 to 266. The good news is these should all be a good tune up for Penn State and Illinois. I don’t see us returning into any polls until after the Illinois series. Hopefully their RPI won’t have fallen too far by then.

Posted under Baseball