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:
Game Recap
| Box Score | R | H | E | ||||||||||||
| EMU | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 9 | 0 | |||
| Michigan | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 10 | 1 | |||
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
Notable Goats
Side Note
Extra Reading
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
| Stat | Person/Team | Rank |
| Ks/9 | Team | 20th |
| HR/G | Team | 37th |
| FLD% | Team | 29th |
| R/G | Cislo | 32th |
| RBi/G | LaMarre | 32th |
| BB/9 | Fetter | 60th |
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
Comments Off on Stat Watch Addendum: Week 5
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.
| Team | Record | RPI | BA | OB% | SLG% |
| Minnesota | 13-6 | 20 | .309 | .432 | .526 |
| Ohio State | 17-2 | 22 | .350 | .405 | .550 |
| Illinois | 12-4 | 48 | .322 | .411 | .438 |
| Michigan | 14-5 | 117 | .321 | .410 | .495 |
| Penn State | 11-8 | 143 | .308 | .396 | .401 |
| Purdue | 8-9 | 194 | .286 | .381 | .411 |
| Indiana | 7-13 | 220 | .338 | .412 | .500 |
| Michigan State | 6-14 | 227 | .253 | .339 | .356 |
| Iowa | 6-10 | 228 | .289 | .382 | .451 |
| Northwestern | 4-14 | 238 | .252 | .323 | .344 |
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.
Posted under Baseball
Comments Off on Stat Watch: Week 5
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
| Poll | Current | LW |
| RPI (3/23/09) | 112 | 134 |
| NCBWA | NR* | NR* |
| Collegiate Baseball | NR | NR |
| BaseballAmerica | NR | NR |
| Ping!Baseball | NR | NR |
| Rivals | NR | NR |
| USA Today/ESPN | 42* | 42* |
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
Comments Off on Baseball Poll Watching
Stu Zaas gives us his story on the women’s lacrosse team.
Ann Arbor, MI — In front of a standing-room only crowd, #3 ranked Michigan (10-2, 4-0) topped interstate foe #14 Michigan State by a score of 12-9. Over 475 fans crowded Oosterbaan Fieldhouse to watch the Wolverines battle the Spartans in tight contest from start to finish. Michigan had not been challenged in a game since returning from the Santa Barbara Shootout winning by an average margin of 11.2 goals in its last five games.
Michigan State made it very clear that this would not be another cakewalk for Michigan, taking a 2-1 lead off two goals from Allison Atchoo. On an eight-meter penalty, Micaela Battiste (Flint, MI/Grand Blanc) leaped into the air, then bounced a shot past the MSU goalie to knot the score at 2-2. Michigan would take the lead for good, using two more goals off eight-meter shots from Amy Johnson (Washington, D.C./Holton-Arms) and Rachel Lary (San Diego, CA/Torrey Pines). The Spartans would cut the lead to one with a goal at the 6:30 mark from Chelsea Beam. Quinn Golinske (Beverly Hills, MI/Groves) scored her second goal of the season, recovering after bobbling the initial pass then beating her defender with a spin move to open up a shot on goal. Johnson then opened the lead up with her second goal of the contest as she converted on an eight-meter, giving Michigan the 6-3 advantage. Michigan would take a 6-4 lead into the intermission, marking the eleventh time this year the Wolverines have gone into halftime with a lead.
Lary opened up the scoring in the second stanza with her season-high tying third goal of the game. Lary ran a give-and-go to perfection with Johnson who earned the assist. Alexis Pavle (Grosse Pointe, MI/Grosse Pointe South) became the third senior to tally a goal on Senior Night, putting Michigan on top 8-4. Fellow senior, Battiste raced up the field weaving through Spartan defenders before finding an open Pavle in front of the net.
The Spartans would not go down quietly with Atchoo taking control of the subsequent draw and beating the entire Michigan defense back leaving just Emmy Scheidt (Birmingham, MI/Seaholm) in her path. Scheidt was unable to come up with the save making the score 8-5. Michigan State would score again three minutes later to draw back to within two goals. Golinske erased any momentum the visiting Spartans were able to build up scoring her second goal of the night on a beautiful one-timer off a Lary assist. Lary found the cutting Golinske on the left post and Golinske swatted the pass right into the net before the MSU goalie could even move her stick. Pavle again pushed the Michigan advantage back up to four goals at 10-6, scoring at the 14:10 mark. After Michigan State narrowed the gap to 10-7, Lary found Britt Boehm (Rocky River, OH/Magnificant) with a cross-goal pass leaving Boehm an open net for her 22nd goal of the season. Pavle would ice the game, completing her hat-trick – all of which came in the second half – at the 7:21 mark. Michigan State would score two goals in the closing minutes to bring the final tally to 12-9.
Michigan will next be in action in Fort Collins, Colorado playing in the Colorado State Tournament this weekend. The Wolverines’ schedule for this tournament includes games against Wyoming, #10 BYU, Denver, #7 Colorado State, and #18 Minnesota.
Game Notes: This was the final home game for Michigan’s seven seniors: Alexis Pavle, Natalie Relich, Micaela Battiste, Julie Baskind, Rebecca Miller, Rachel Lary, and Christinne Lee…Michigan finished the season undefeated at home (7-0)…Game attendance of 475 set a new program record as spectators had to stand or sit on the ground once bleacher space was exhausted…Johnson’s two goals give her the team lead with 25 on the season…Lary and Pavle extended their team-high six game goal streak…Johnson now has ten multi-goal games on the season and has scored in ten of the twelve games this season.
Posted under Other Sports
Saturday’s game against Vanderbilt was canceled, so the Wolverines only partook in one contest this weekend. They squared off against fellow Washtenaw-ites (Washtenaw-ians?) Eastern Michigan on Friday night.
So, before this game I was told to listen for a few new names, because a lot of bench players would be scoring for the Wolverines. The obvious implication here was that Eastern isn’t exactly a lacrosse powerhouse. Understatement of the year. The Wolverines were up 6-0 before you could blink an eye, and ended up winning the game by 25 goals. Senior Peter Vasher returned from a hamstring injury to score his first 4 goals of the year, Trevor Yealy scored 8, Wes McGowan notched 6, and 5 other Wolverines got on board multiple times.
Once again, Sophomores Andrew Fowler and Mark Stone split time in net, with Fowler getting the start. Fowler allowed 5 goals on 8 shots in the first half, and Stone allowed 3 goals on 7 shots in the second. The men in net for Eastern also played really well (though the final score wouldn’t seem to indicate it). Michigan probably could have gotten as high as 40 considering the quality of defense, but the Eastern goalies made a couple ridiculous saves.
The only times Eastern put up any resistance were a couple stretches where the Wolverines had mental lapses, allowing the Eagles 2 goals in a 37-second stretch in the first quarter, and 3 goals in a minute and a half during the second quarter. Other than that, the Michigan depth in the second half gave up a couple.
This weekend, Michigan will face off against Central Michigan on Friday night at 7PM. However, the headline game of the home schedule is the following night, with the #4 BYU Cougars attempting to come into Oosterbaan fieldhouse and steal a win from their rivals.
Posted under Other Sports
This weekend Michigan faced off with IPFW, and did it ever turn out better than the series the weekend before against Arizona. During the Arizona game, pitching was alright, but wildly inconsistent. Hitting was doing alright, but couldn’t manage to get runs across the plate. This weekend, it was all about effectively wild and moving runners around to make them easier to score. Everything shifted from alright, too pretty good.
Game 1
| Box Score | R | H | E | ||||||||||||
| IPFW | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 8 | 0 | |||
| Michigan | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | x | 4 | 11 | 0 | |||
W – Chris Fetter (3-1) L – Walker (0-1) Sv – Burgoon (2)
For my initial reactions, visit my post from Saturday. The story of this game was pitching. Chris Fetter, despite the pretty stat line, had a fairly weak start for him. He admittedly claimed he was just missing his spots, but from the sounds of the radio crew, perhaps he was getting squeezed a little on the corners. Either way, as mentioned, his stat line was still really good. Fetter lasted 6 innings, giving up 2 runs (both earned), 7 hits, and 2 walks while striking out 5. I’d take that out of any pitcher any day of the week, it just happened that this was Fetter on an off day. He’s just that good.
Following Fetter was Tyler Burgoon for a rare 3-inning save opportunity. Burgoon only gave up 1 hit and three walks, but did allow three base runners with 2 outs in the 8th. After a brief talk with Coach Maloney, he struck out the last batter of the inning on 4 pitches. The rest was a cake walk for Tyler.
On offense, Mike Dufek was the champion in this game, and really, the whole weekend was a Mike Dufek hit-a-thon. In this game he got the scoring started with a big 2-out double off the wall to plate Cislo and LaMarre. Dufek would finish the game 2/4 with 2 RBIs.
Notable Stars
Notable Goats
Game 2
| Box Score | R | H | E | ||||||||||||
| IPFW | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | |||
| Michigan | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | x | 4 | 6 | 1 | |||
W – Eric Katzman (3-1) L – Herrold (1-1) Sv – Miller (2)
This game probably would have bored half of the casual fans to death. Outside of the 2 innings, this game was an exercise of either offensive futility, or as I like to call it, good pitching and defensive excellence. Again, check the Saturday Reaction post for my initial thoughts.
Michigan jumped out to a quick 3-0 lead in the first following a pair of singles by Cislo and Fellows and a Ryan LaMarre sacrifice fly. Two batters later Mike Dufek continued his hit parade with a bomb to right field. The hit even rattled a few people out of Dance Marathon as the homer hit the indoor track building where DM was taking place. Huzzah for uncounted attendance watching through the fence!
In the top of the second, Eric Katzman did his best sabotage effort. After giving up a lead off single, he then committed a throwing error on a pick off at first. The ball got away far enough from Dufek to allow the runner to second. Later on in the at-bat, Katzman balked the runner over to third. The explanation was hazy from the announcers as they didn’t see it either, but they believe he didn’t come to a full pause in the set position. He followed this up by giving up a sacrifice fly. If you ask me that’d be an earned run as it was all Katzman for letting him score, but baseball rules say its unearned.
The rest of the game Katzman was straight dealing. While he still was fairly inconsistent in hitting the strike zone, he managed to be just controlled enough to garner 10 Ks (!), a career high. Katzman was coming at the batters with many off speed pitches, including breaking balls and change ups. They were left just off balance by the several balls in the dirt that they were guessing most of the night.
Katzman was by no way economical with his pitches. Over his 6 innings, Katzman threw 100 pitches, only 61 of which were strikes. Ideally, he’d be hitting the century mark somewhere late in the 7th inning. Just for the sake of comparison, the IPFW pitcher threw all 8 innings and only threw 105 pitches. This trend of high pitch counts and early exits appear to be the normal thing for Katzman.
After Katzman left, Matt Miller entered the game for another 3-inning save opportunity – not so rare I guess. Miller picked up right where Katzman left off, striking out 5 in his 3 innings. He only allowed one hit and one walk in that time as well.
Offense for Michigan after the 2nd inning was horrendous. Not once from the third to eighth innings did Michigan ever get more than 3 batters up to the plate. Alan Oaks ended two innings with ground ball double plays. LaMarre got doubled up on a line drive back to the pitcher, which I can feel alright about as that’s just the luck of the draw. In another inning we got picked off at first. I can’t say we wasted opportunities, but we sure didn’t make the most of our base runners in this game.
Notable Stars
Notable Goats
Game 3
| Box Score | R | H | E | ||||||||||||
| IPFW | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 11 | 3 | |||
| Michigan | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 3 | x | 9 | 14 | 0 | |||
W – Travis Smith (3-2) L – Baatz (0-1)
IPFW had every chance in the world to take this game, but Mike Wilson and Travis Smith became master escape artists every time the pressure was put on. They did just enough to get out of a couple of jams, and the offense finally started to roll by the 6th inning.
Mike Wilson continued the “wildly effective” pitching routine portrayed by Eric Katzman the day before. Despite throwing first pitch strikes to 13 of his first 18 batters, Wilson quickly fell behind batters and was forced into making hitters’ pitches. When it came to crunch time, Wilson locked down and made his pitches. He stranded 8 base runners on the afternoon in just 5 innings of play.
Wilson did give up one run in the third inning. After a lead off double and two quick outs, Wilson gave up back to back singles. I guess there just wasn’t enough pressure on him, so he tried to get runners on first and third so he could pitch better?
The run gave IPFW a short-lived 1-0 lead, their last lead of the game. Mike Dufek answered in the bottom half of the third with yet another home run, his second in as many games. The home run also extended his hitting streak to 10 games. According to the broadcasters, the ball landed in the Alumni Stadium, the softball field, well past the fence of the Ray Fisher Stadium. Wow.
Travis Smith came in with a 2-0 lead at this point and was throwing gas. His control wasn’t quite there, but he also managed to work himself out of jams. Smith stranded 4 base runners in 3 innings of work. He did allow one run to score in the 6th, leaving Wilson with a no decision. Kalczynski was crossed up on a pitch which lead to a passed ball. This moved a runner to second, who then would score on an ensuing single.
With the score tied at two in the 6th, Michigan came back to answer in the bottom of the inning. John Lorenz had the big hit with two outs, a home run to left field. This sparked the offense as Toth and Cislo (career high 15 game hit streak) both followed up with singles setting the stage for a Kenny Fellows double off the right field wall. Unfortunately Fellows thought he was a little faster than he was, getting caught trying to stretch it into a triple. Michigan was then up 5-2 and would never look back.
Michigan would add another in the 7th following a Dufek double and Alan Oaks single. Yet again, we had a batter runner thrown out trying to stretch for an extra base. Oaks wasn’t nearly fast enough to stretch it into a double. I appreciate the aggressiveness from Oaks, but just because he scored on a suicide squeeze in game one doesn’t mean he can barrel into second on a shallow hit to the outfield.
Michigan added two more in the 9th. After back-to-back singles by Kalczynski and Lorenz, Cislo went to sacrifice bunt. The pitcher fielded the bunt poorly then made a hurried attempt to second which skipped to the bag. Everyone was safe. Fellows followed that with a single to score two runs. LaMarre then hit a soft pop up between the center fielder and the second basemen. The ball popped out of the second basemen’s glove as the two players collided. Both players were alright and stayed in the game. Cislo scored from third on the play, but Fellows was forced out at second as it wasn’t clear if the ball was caught. He stayed close to first in case he had to tag. Tough out, but at least the two outfielders were okay.
Mike Dufek came in after this and closed out the game. Michigan won the game and it’s first home series of the year. Things were good and “Celebrate Good Times” was played.
Notable Stars
Notable Goats
First Inning Shenanigans
For those of you who didn’t listen to the game, there was a bit of a commotion in the top of the first inning. With runners on first and third, Wilson threw a pitch toward the plate that was well low and inside. The pitch bounced in the front of the batter’s box and bounced off toward the IPFW dugout.
Kalczynski didn’t hustle right after the ball, which sent the runners going. The runner from third scored easily, and the runner from first came all the way around as none of the players on the field knew where the ball went to… or did they? Comes to find out the umpire didn’t see the ball hit off the batter.
The umpires conferenced after Coach Maloney and Timmy Kal made their case. They made the ruling that the batter was hit by the pitch. Both runs were taken off the board and the batter was given first base without even arguing. I know if I was hit but they gave me the choice of first base with the bases loaded and one out or 2 runs in and me still at bat, I’d be hollering in that umpire’s ear that there was no way I was touched by the pitch. IPFW didn’t even attempt to argue, which worked out really poorly for them. Wilson struck out the next two batters stranding the bases loaded. The crises was averted and Michigan didn’t have to worry about being down 2-0 right out of the shoot.
Lineup Shuffling
Coach Maloney has been shuffling the lineup frequently of late. With Alan Oaks now available after missing the first month with sickness and with Chris Berset still unavailable after I believe a broken thumb, there have been a couple attempts to balance out the lineup. Most of the activity has been centered around Jake McLouth at DH, Oaks in RF or at DH, Urban in RF or at 3B, and Lorenz at 3B.
Jake McLouth has been cooling off since my initial inquiry about him switching with Dufek in the lineup. I took another look at the stats before game 3 of the weekend to see how the two had been doing. I don’t think it’s worth going into deeply here, but long story short, Dufek has caught fire. His current 10 game hitting streak started the day the change took place. Coincidence? Yes, probably. Good for the team? Of course. So do I care that much? No. I don’t see the two switching in the near future, but if McLouth doesn’t keep producing, he may be run out of the DH spot.
Who would take it you ask? That would be Alan Oaks. Oaks returns after a bit of an illness to start the season. Last year, Oaks made several starts at third base doing pretty well. Alan offers some major power and appears to be getting hot right now. This weekend he hit for a .545 clip with 2 runs and an RBI. Not bad for hitting in the 6/7/8 holes.
The other alternative to Oaks in the DH is to place him in right field, where he is a slight drop in defensive prowess. Moving him here forces Urban either to the bench, such as in Game 3, or to play third base, such as in Game 2. Urban came to Michigan as a second basemen, so he does have infield experience. I’m not sure what to expect of him at third, but it probably couldn’t be too much worse than Lorenz has been there.
Lorenz hasn’t been too poor defensively at third base, but his .895 fielding percentage does leave a little bit to be desired. He’s been our best option there so far, and I don’t think he’s done too poorly at the hot corner. The first few weekends he wasn’t really tested too much and had a couple early season mental mistakes. He’s become pretty solid there over the last 2 weekends, flashing some great leather. His hitting has been his week point, despite his performance in Game 3. From what I can see (read: my opinion), Lorenz has great potential, he just will only show flashes of it this year, and not be very consistent at the plate. He’ll be really good in a year or two.
Final Thoughts on IPFW
IPFW is a good team that will knock off a few good teams this year. They just ran into a more talented team this weekend. They should compete with Centenary and Oral Roberts for the Summit League Championship this year. I at least hope so, as with their current RPI, sweeping them didn’t help us that much with our own RPI. We have moved from 134 as of Tuesday to only 117 on Sunday morning. EMU helped even less as they are currently about 20 spots lower in RPI than IPFW.
Speaking of EMU, it’s just one game left before we start the conference season. We finish the home-and-home with EMU on Wednesday at 3pm. Right now the weather says 51 degrees and a 40% chance of rain. We’ll see if the game isn’t bumped up earlier in the week or if they try to play it then.
Posted under Baseball
Michigan succumbed to the Sooners, but for some reason I’m not mad. It wasn’t our year yet. Our two best players had foul trouble for most of the game, leading to lots of playing time for Walkons, Canadians, and Anthony Wright.
Speaking of whom, dude killed it tonight. Even if he reverts to Anthony Wright 2007-08 next year, I still don’t think I can make fun of him again, because he was a stone cold sniper in a tournament game. For Michigan. Anthony Wright. Seriously.
It’s a small miracle Michigan got to this point, much less gave a #2 seed one hell of a game. However, there’s a reason Blake Griffin is basically the consensus player of the year. He’s a damn good ball player. There’s also a reason opposing fans hate him, on top of the “beating the hell out of their team” thing. He acts like a bitch, is one of the cockiest players to ever not draw a taunting technical, is ginger, etc.
Getting to the NIT was a lofty goal for this team at the beginning of the season. Making the tournament was absolute gravy, despite what many people expected after wins over UCLA and Duke. Getting to the second round was just short of unbelievable, and we ran into a decent team with the best player in the country. So be it. Michigan in the tournament is crazy enough.
A more comprehensive basketball season wrapup is coming later next week, then you may return to your regularly-scheduled footballcentric programming.
A los barcos, hemos quemado.
Posted under Basketball
Didn’t get the preview out this weekend due to being a bit busy. I’ll throw this up here as a reactions post for comments, etc. I’ll have a full recap on Monday. Don’t forget (as if you could) about the OU game tonight at 5:50pm. Tim’s preview can be found here.
Game 1
The home opener was a close game. Chris Fetter didn’t have his A game, but his B game was enough to keep IPFW at bay. His control wasn’t at peak form in the game as he had a pretty high ball to strike ratio. I don’t have the specific numbers as I spent the first half of the game trying to get my stat software set up. Fetter does address this in the video below though.
On offense, Dufek has really started to light it up. He went 2-4 this game with a big 2 RBI double. Alan Oaks also broke his cold streak with a home run to just past the Blue Monster in right. We only left 7 runners on base, which is still a shade higher than I’d like to see (I consider <= 5 to be a pretty good day). The unfortunate part was stranding runners at 2nd and 3rd in both the 4th and 6th innings. The 4th hurt a little worse as we had it with only one out, but still couldn’t muster a run.
One minor note, we have our new radio announcers for the home schedule. The guys had a rough go around on the first try, but they sounded much better after the second game. They totally redeemed themselves with this though: Video Highlights from mgoblue.com. This is the first time I can say I’ve noticed these being put up, which excites me plenty. I’d embed it, but I’m having some problems with that. Either way, thanks to the announcers for references to the site. We appreciate your work as well.
Game 2
The best news is a win is a win. Even in this game that was fairly uneventful to the average fan, there were a couple points worth noting.
Katzman struggled pretty bad for striking out 10 batters. It wasn’t that he wasn’t making good pitches, but he just wasn’t being “economical” with his pitch count. Eric threw at least 5 pitches to 13 of the 23 batters he faced. His breaking balls just weren’t getting close enough to the zone. I do like the idea of being “effectively wild” to keep batters off balance, but I also think there is a limit on how many extra pitches can be afforded. This balance is what has plagued Katzman on his off days. He tends to walk or hit more batters, causing bigger problems. So while we see the benefits of the wildness today, keep in mind that its high risk/high reward. Despite the final line from Katzman, I’d just call this a really good game, but not a great one.
Matt Miller on the other hand did a better job of getting ahead of hitters and putting them away. His 5 strikeouts, as described by the radio broadcasters, were the product of painting both sides of the plate and general changing of location. Batters were left guessing which side of the plate the ball would be coming, and then flailed wildly at the hard sliders. Great job by Matt.
The offense managed to score three runs in the first from a LaMarre sacrifice fly and Mike Dufek two run homerun. Alan Oaks also generated offense in the second inning. After singling, he stole second, but with a throwing error on the catcher, was able to advance to third. Toth then suicide squeezed him in with a bunt down the first baseline. The pitcher Herrold had no choice but to go to first base.
After that, the offense managed to shoot itself in the foot inning after inning. Each inning from the third to the eighth, Michigan managed only three batters each inning. In the 3rd, 4th, 6th, and 7th, the Wolverines managed to get a base runner on; each inning that runner was put out. Alan Oaks grounded into two inning ending double plays. Jake McLouth lined back to the pitcher which caught Ryan LaMarre off guard at first leading to him being double up. In the 6th, Kenny Fellows was caught leaning on a pick off play. It was pretty ugly.
The IPFW pitcher Herrold was both effective and lucky. Every inning he found an out, allowing him to stay in the game. He ended with 8 innings, 6 hits, 4 runs (3 earned), 2 walks, and 5 strikeouts. All-in-all, a really good outing against us.
After two close games, I really think IPFW is just having tough luck with the RPI. Their team is at least as good as any of the BigEast teams we’ve played this year, and I fully expect them to make some headlines with some Mid Week games later in the season. They’ll knock off a couple more Big10 teams here and there.
Game 3
The first home series wraps up tomorrow at 1:05pm. Make it out to see Mike Wilson (supposedly) make his first start of the year. Pray he throws like Mike Wilson circa 2007.
Posted under Baseball
