Michigan managed to take one from Minnesota today. Michigan got lucky with a Garrett Stephens hit knocking the pitcher out Rosin out of the game early. I heard it was hard shot off his leg, but I’ll leave that up to someone in the comments to clarify. While I never wish injury upon anyone, it worked very well for Michigan, giving them a chance to go through Minnesota’s bullpen.
The final score was 10-4 and I’ll recap it in full tomorrow. The 6th place standings as of this moment are:
| Team | W | L | % |
| Purdue | 8 | 11 | .421 |
| Michigan | 8 | 13 | .381 |
| Penn State | 7 | 14 | .333 |
Purdue plays again tomorrow against Michigan State. I’m not sure what’s up with the Saturday through Monday series, but its there at least. We really need Michigan State to win tomorrow. We REALLY need Illinois to win their series @Purdue next weekend. AND we really, really need to take care of Northwestern next weekend in Evanston. I’m not too concerned about Penn State. They have to sweep Minnesota and sacrifice a goat to some sort of pagan Nittany god that Purdue loses at least 3 games and Michigan only takes 2 in the series against Northwestern. That would put them tied with us for 6th, but they hold the tie breaker. I don’t think that’s likely, but it is still a potential situation.
Our “magic tournament number” is currently 5. That’s any combination of Michigan wins or Purdue losses.
And because this is one of those few situations where this is applicable: Go Sparty! Beat Purdue!
Posted under Baseball
Tags: baseball bracketology, minnesota, penn state, purdue
Thanks UM from a Buckeyes fan for beating the Gophers today.
Go Bucks!
Yeah, he got absolutely drilled by a line drive in the lower back/hip area. That was a hard hit ball and must have really hurt. Rosin hadn’t been really tearing it up out there so he might not have lasted long anyway.
Was UM suppose to have a contending baseball team this year? If so, what the heck happened? Injuries or just no team chemistry?
I’d say offensive woes are high on the list of what is wrong. With 2 of the top pitchers in the Big Ten, I thought Mich would have more wins than they do.
No. Michigan lost six of their starters, including their Friday night ace/DH, first baseman who also was in the top five in the nation in home runs, shortstop slugger, closer — you know, those sort of insignificant guys. Four of them are playing minor league balll now.
On top of that, starting catcher and most reliable reliever were out at the start of the Big Ten season.
Yeah, we lost the entire infield (Cislo was CF last year). We lost our DH. We lost the BigTen Pitcher of the Year. We lost the BigTen’s best slugger. We lost our closer. We were supposed to compete this year. Instead, we lost our starting catcher for over 6 weeks. We lost our closer (who may or may not have come back too soon). We started a true freshman at 3B and DH. We had a true freshman catching about half the games while our starter was out. The transition to 3 9 inning games instead of 2 9-inning and 2 7-inning games each weekend did a toll on the pitching staff. Last few seasons saw Fetter going complete games on saturdays (7-innings) and Putnam throwing 7-8 innings on a friday allowing the bullpen to only throw 4-7 innings on a weekend instead of the 8-9 its done lately. Not to mention the doubling up on midweek games. We had been playing only one game per midweek saving the bullpen even more.
Yeah, offensively we struggled, but there was more to it than just offense. I’ll cover this more extensively after the season concludes.
I’ve tried to get my head around this season for awhile now. We knew going in we wasn’t the deepest. We had several injuries with many doing their best to play through them and come back asap. Coach says pre-season they’ll need to play “small ball” yet we never really saw it. Unless hit and run 4 times a game and getting tossed at 2nd is your idea of small ball. The game is a triad…. Pitching, hitting and fielding. You need 2 to be present to be a consistant winner. They just didn’t come together. I think we all have seen that. Win as a team – lose as a team. No excuses! ….and from past posts… Don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame the coaches but I also don’t let them off the hook. They are the glue and who needs to bring the components together. I get a mixed message from video and write-ups when I here the coach say they’ve done all they can and its up to the players to exicute. To me, that’s a cop out. Win as a team – lose as a team. All in all….a disapointing season for sure but all should stand together and know they’ll get better and improve next year. No one, two or three individuals to blame…just accept and move on. Go Blue!
Well, look at that video from Friday night — coach has his hand up in what I assume is the universal symbol for stop and Kittle rounds third and heads for home. That seems like a failure to execute. The errors seem like failure to execute. Yeah, some of the steal instructions that failed have driven me wild and that can be on the coach, maybe.
I am not placing blame anywhere, myself. We all knew it was going to be a tough year. My daughter cried about it, but we still showed up and cheered.
Here’s hoping for a miracle and the sixth tournament spot! I wish our weekend wasn’t so ridiculous so we could head to Evanston.
I agree with both of you. It’s been an all around disappointment. I’m going skip the recap post today. I just got news of a death in the family and really don’t feel like posting right now. I’m going to be out of town for the funeral Friday and Saturday, so it’ll be a bit slow on updates from me as well.
Go Blue. Good luck.