vs. Indiana
 |
| from indiana.edu |
6:35pm Friday, 1:05pm Saturday, 1:05pm Sunday
Ray Fisher Stadium
Ann Arbor, MI
Media Game 1: Live Stats and Audio (WBCN)
Probable Starters Game 1: Chris Fetter (5-1) vs. TBA
Media Game 2: Live Stats and Audio (WBCN)
Probable Starters Game 2: Eric Katzman (6-3) vs TBA
Media Game 3: Live Stats and Audio (WBCN)
Probable Starters Game 3: TBA vs TBA
Series: Michigan leads 123-54
Last Meeting: Michigan UM split the season series @Bloomington last year, but won the rubber match in the BigTen Tournament in Ann Arbor
Last Michigan Loss: 4-11, (April 2008 @ IU), Mike Wilson gave up 4 runs in .1 innings to start the game, Jenzen gave up 2 in 1.1 of relief. Burgoon pitched 5.1 innings giving up 5 runs.
Overview
Indiana enters this series with a less than sterling 18-20 record, but don’t let that fool you. This team is very good and is picked by many to be the team to beat out ranked Ohio State for the conference crown. They currently are 8-3 in BigTen play, good for second and only .5 games behind Ohio State. They are batting .327 as a team, also second to Ohio State. Two of their three weekend starters claim conference ERAs under 3.00. Eric Arnett is the leader for BigTen pitcher of the year (BT stats – 34 innings, 5 R, 5 ER, 34 K, 9 BB) His 1.94 ERA leads the conference. Matt Bashore was their ace last year, and has been pretty good in conference play himself. His BigTen ERA is 2.82 over 22.1 innings with 7 ER and 22 K.
For player overviews, check out the Q&A with IUBaseballFan and his Q&A with me @ Behind the Plate.
The Weather
Weather looks perfect the next few days.
Winds are blowing straight in from center; they’re hard enough I don’t expect too many balls carrying out.
Promotions
Bring a phonebook to be recycled and get into Friday’s game for $1. Also on Friday, the team appears to be giving away free trees. They call it grow your own baseball on MGoBlue, but I think they meant baseball bat?
Saturday is Daddy/Daughter day through Heart of Michigan Council Girl Scouts. Scouts and their dad’s get in for $5 a person and receive a food voucher. Saturday also features a guest appearance by an ambulance and fire truck for kids to look at and hear safety tips from paramedics. WOO FIRE TRUCKS!
Sunday is an extravaganza. We start with a kiddie carnival with inflatables, face painting, “and much more!” Little League and high school players receive free admission to the game. Trading cards go to the first 500 fans. AND after the game,” the ENTIRE Michigan baseball team will be signing autographs for fans!”
Awesome. Get out to the games.
For the full list of promotions, go here.
Outlook
I’m not overly confident about this series. I think Michigan can take one, probably tonight’s game. I’m guessing the Indiana starter will be Blake Monar, who hasn’t been that spectacular. He’s been their regular Friday guy though. It’s unclear if IU coach Tracy Smith will move around his starting rotation in order to get his ace against Fetter.
The other thing going for Michigan is their luck against really good pitching. Outside of Stoffel at Arizona, Michigan has been lucky to knock the aces around for most teams, or at least get an early exit (Reeser at Illinois). The problem for the Wolverines has been the meh pitchers – like Monar.
At this point, I think we take game, two if we get really lucky and play solid defense.
Posted under Baseball
Tags: chris fetter, indiana, woo firetrucks
Here’s a safety tip I learned at the game tonight — players, coaches, be careful around one another because getting hit in the head with a bat leads to an automatic trip in an ambulance.
Otherwise, a great night. Painful to watch the IU errors, but at least it wasn’t Michigan, as it has been all to often this year.
Rumor in the stands is that Oaks will pitch again tomorrow, Katzman Sunday. Take it with a grain of salt.
Blake Monar is not a meh pitcher!
When I say “meh”, I mean it as not outstanding to the level of Arnett or Bashore (last year). Monar is pretty good, but he’s no star.
He’s still the Friday starter for probably the best rotation in the Big Ten. Granted, Arnett has been the best, but left/right/left works best and Monar has pitched better than Bashore this year with the exception of a couple bad starts. He has good movement on fastball, good change, and excellent curve and tends to not give up too many xtra base hits. I think “meh” or “pretty good” is definitely an understatement, but I guess you have your opinion and I have mine! We will see how he plays out…
Good luck today, cheering hard for the Maize & Blue today before Michigan Week returns Monday.
Kinda liked the idea the IU guy did with the Q&A. I really don’t do an original preview for weekend series, just too busy with work and class, but this series gets the fans going so I might have to. Would you be up to answer a few questions? That I could post Thursday?
one of those things I guess. Season getting long on us…still have the Buckeyes and Gophers we can mess up though. Pitching and defense looked good over the weekend…now just need the bats to click at the same time.
Yeah, as I said to formerly this weekend, every time we’d get men on and I thought we’d be seeing a run cross the plate, we’d end up with a soul-crushing ground-out instead. And no baseball at the Fish for a week and a half!