With the Michigan State Series wrapping up today, the BigTen Conference season has reached the midpoint. The conference season hasn’t fared so well for Michigan, obviously, as the Wolverines are currently 5-7 in 8th place. Lets take a look back at what we’ve seen, then look forward to what we have left to know what we have to do to make a solid run.

Where We’ve Been

@Iowa
Series Record	2-1
Scores	4-3	1-2	7-5
Game 1	Fetter gives up 3 early, but clamps down for the CG, and the comeback win
Game 2	Katzman/Miller/Burgoon combine to 6-hit Iowa but lose as we have no offense
Game 3	With snow piled up in the warning track, an ugly game defensively for both teams. We out hit and take advantage of 5 Iowa errors.
Outlook then	We should have swept, but this series shouldn’t affect a tournament bid.

We should have swept. Iowa is one of only two teams below us in the standings. We definitely need that win now. Iowa’s season has been a slow spiral downward. They took one game from Purdue, were swept by Indiana, and split with Northwestern. Iowa isn’t a good team and we squandered that game.

vs Penn State
Series Record	1-2
Scores	4-6 (10)	9-5	5-16
Game 1	Fetter gives up 3 in the 4th and 1 in the fifth, but offense went to sleep and Miller gave up two in the 10th.
Game 2	Katzman pitched well, but PSU scored a 5 spot late from a LaMarre error, we scored 5 to answer in the bottom of that inning.
Game 3	We never stood a chance as Smith/Wilson/Sinnery/Gerbe give up 16 runs(12 earned). Total blowout.
Outlook then	My expectations for the team are falling pretty fast. With the massive amount of inconsistency, added with the sloppy play all weekend on defense, I’m not sure we get higher than a 4 seed in the BTT now.

We’re pretty equal to Penn State. They are currently right at .500 in conference play. We’ll be fighting them head to head for a 6th spot in the tournament. Losing the series to them hurts as it is the tie breaker.

vs Illinois
Series Record	1-2
Scores	4-2	8-10	5-11
Game 1	Fetter goes the distance again with 13 Ks. Offense scrapes by.
Game 2	We knock out the Big10s best pitcher (along with possible injury) out after 1 inning. Sloppy defense in the 5th gives up 5 runs.
Game 3	Alan Oaks kept the team in the game after a shaky Smith start. Unfortunately he stayed in about 3 batters too long, leading to a late 4 run inning.
Outlook then	I don’t think this was too bad of a weekend for the team. Illinois is one of the better teams in the conference this season, especially in the pitching department. There were a few lapses though, especially on defense.

This still wasn’t a bad series. We could have performed a little bit better, but the outcome is about what I would have expected. Illinois is a strong team and toward the top of the BigTen standings. They’ll be a top 3 seed in the tournament.

@/vs Michigan State
Series Record	1-2
Scores	7-8 (11)	1-3	9-2
Game 1	Fetter gives up 3 (1 earned) in 8 innings, leaving with the lead. Burgoon blows the save by overthrowing 2nd base on a sac bunt. He blows the win again in the 10th giving up 2 earned runs. Katzman takes the loss in the 11th.
Game 2	Alan Oaks throws the game of his career, 7.2 innings, 3 Rs, 5 BB, 4 K. No offense as we only get 5 total bases.
Game 3	For the first time in conference play, we see Michigan play like they should. Bats hit well, Katzman/Miller pitch well.  We take care of business.
Outlook then	We really just lost two games like that?

Then is now. It still sucks. Michigan State defends their home field well, but we would have won Game 1 if not for the bullpen. We should have won Game 2 if not for the lack of offense. Would have, should have, didn’t.  We finally woke up in game 3, but it was too late.  The game we played on Sunday is how we should look every time out.  We just don’t have that consistency.

So here we are, sitting at 8th place (PSU and MSU hold tie breakers at 5-7) in the BigTen.  We are currently 4 games back of the top team, so we really aren’t that far out.  We still have games against three of the top four teams.

Where We’re Going

Indiana (6-3): The Hoosiers are a great hitting team and have probably the best offensive player in the BigTen with Josh Phegley. The Hoosiers have players in the top 3 of nearly every offensive category in BigTen play. They also rank third in the league in strikeouts. The Hoosiers split a pair with Minnesota, took 2 of 3 from Illinois, swept Iowa, and took 2 of 3 from Penn State. We may take one game in this series. I fear the Sunday game.

@#26 Ohio State (7-3): Everything the Hoosiers do, Ohio State does better. The Buckeyes sit atop the BigTen standing and will have a hostile home crowd. They took 2 from Penn State, 1 from Minnesota, swept Michigan State, and swept Purdue. My prediction: pain. I again think we have a shot to win a game, but it’s not a very high chance. The one thing we’ve got going for us is no midweek games so the entire bullpen should be rested. Game 1 of Fetter vs Wimmers should be epic (aka most of you will find it boring as all hell).

Minnesota (7-3): Minnesota completes our three game streak of tough competition. The Gophers are ranked in some polls – deservedly so. Offensively, their numbers match up to Michigan’s very well, but they get that extra hit to drive in the run where Michigan has failed consistently all year. On the pitching side, they are exactly opposite of Michigan… they are consistently good. Minnesota split a pair with Indiana, took 2 of three from Ohio State, swept Northwestern, and took 1 of three from Illinois. The outlook doesn’t look good right now. It’ll be a struggle to win a game here. The only good news I can offer is we do better against good pitchers than we do meh pitchers.

@Northwestern (2-7): Northwestern is the worst team in the BigTen. They are the worst hitting team in the BigTen and they don’t pitch particularly well. They rival Michigan State for fewest strikeouts, but sit 7th in BigTen team ERA. I see us winning at least two games in this series, most likely a sweep. But as we’ve seen all season, we have a tendency to blow games to inferior teams.

I really think we end up with 6 or 7 wins out of that schedule, especially the way we’re playing right now. That leaves us with a conference record around 11-13 or 12-12 for the season. The cut of for the tournament is historically around 12 wins (actually ~=16 wins, but we moved from 4 game series to 3 this year, 16*.75=12).

My projections for our competition after the jump. Read More…

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There is a lot of not good in game 1 and 2, but game 3 went well.

Game 1

Box Score																R	H	E
Michigan	0	0	4		0	0	0		0	1	0		2	0		7	10	3
MSU	0	0	2		0	1	0		0	0	2		2	1		8	11	1

W – Wonderlich (4-4) L – Eric Katzman (5-3) Sv – None

Michigan jumped ahead in this one with a big 3rd inning, but the defense kept creating new ways to let State get back into the game. In the third, Lorenz made a throwing error trying to get a runner at the plate. That would have been out number two and the ensuing fly ball would be the end of the inning. Instead a run scored, and the fly ball was a sacrifice fly to bring in another.

In the fifth, Fetter made his only mistake of the game, a lead off homerun on the first pitch of the inning. In the 9th, with the lead, Tyler Burgoon fielded a sacrifice bunt and went to first, overthrowing Kevin Cislo. The ball went into the outfield. Two runs would score unearned.

In the 10th, the bullpen fell apart. Burgoon let two runners on, Miller faced one batter (a walk), and Katzman gave up a bases loaded walk and sac fly. Two runs would score and we’d blow our second save of the game. In the 11th, the winning run would reach on a Anthony Toth error. It was awful.

Offense looked good though. The bottom of the order produced very well and we were getting the timely hits. We only stranded 6 runners the whole game. Unfortunately, it takes more than just scoring runs to win ball games – you’ve got to play defense.

Notable Stars

• Chris Fetter – 8 IP, 3 R, 1 ER, 8 H, 3 BB, 6 K, ND
• Mike Dufek – 1/4 3 RBI, R, HR, SACF
• Anthony Toth – 3/5 R, RBI
• Chris Berset – 2/5 R, 2B

Notable Goats

• Defense – Toth/Lorenz/Burgoon. Errors lead to 5(!) unearned runs. Burgoon’s blew a save, Toth’s lead to the final MSU run
• Bullpen – Along with Burgoon’s error, he had two earned runs (Miller/Katzman inherited them and couldn’t finish the inning). Miller faced one batter and walked him.

Other Notes

• Lansing State Journal – Extra special win for Spartans

Game 2

Box Score													R	H	E
MSU	0	0	1		0	2	0		0	0	0		3	6	1
Michigan	0	0	1		0	0	0		0	0	0		1	4	0

W – Achter (2-3) L – Alan Oaks (0-2) Sv – Wolff(4)

See: Why We Lost MSU Game 2. I think that touches nearly all the bad I wanted to touch upon.

As for the good, Alan Oaks pitched the game of his college career. Maloney said he earned the start and did he ever make the most of it. It is sickening he took the loss in this game. Alan only gave up 3 runs in the start, one from a balk with two outs and a runner on third (ouch); the other came from a one out walk followed by 3 2-out hits. Oaksie gave up 5 hits, walked 5 and hit a batter, but he managed his base runners well, working his way out of trouble. He even recorded four strikeouts, 2 coming in an inning where he had runners on 2nd and 3rd with one out.

Notable Stars

• Alan Oaks – 7.2 IP, 3 ER, 5 BB, 1 HBP, 4 K, 1 Balk, 121 Pitches, 65 Strikes
• Chris Berset – 2/4 RBI
• Jim Abbott – Retired his #31 jersey, signed autographs for nearly an hour and a half
• Attendance – Officially 3453. Highest of the season.

Notable Goats

• See that Why We Lost Post. I don’t want to get into it again.

Other Notes

• My one regret: Chris Berset was on deck to end the game.
• The Ann Arbor News – Frustrating.

“Timely hitting … you can’t teach it. It just has to happen,” Maloney said. “… Right now for our team, things haven’t been going real well.

• Michigan Today – John U. Bacon recaps Jim Abbott’s career.
• The Ann Arbor News – Abbott Blessed to have number retired.

Game 3

Box Score													R	H	E
Michigan	0	0	2		0	4	0		0	1	2		9	12	0
MSU	0	0	0		0	0	2		0	0	0		2	7	0

W – Eric Katzman (6-3) L – Corcoran (0-4) Sv – Miller (3).

Thank god we won one to avert the first series sweep in at least 8 years. This game is everything I expected from the Michigan team this year. I expected us to hit well. I expected the pitching to be a little shaky but pull through. I expected us to take care of lesser opponents. Finally, for the first time all season, I saw Michigan baseball.

Eric Katzman, who apparently wants to earn a decision as often as possible, started this game and did fairly well. He wasn’t outstanding, but he was “good Katzman.” He didn’t have the best control, but he got outs. He just ran out of gas after 120 pitches, leading to the two runs scored. Matt Miller on the other hand was lights out for the 3+ innings of work.

Everything was clicking on offense. The top of the lineup was on base every inning and the middle of the lineup got the timely hitting to knock them in. Even John Lorenz had a great game knocking in 3 runs.

This game has me excited.

Notable Stars

• Mike Dufek – 2/4 2 R, 3 RBI, 2B
• Kenny Fellows – 3/5 2 R, SB
• John Lorenz – 2/4 3 RBI
• Kevin Cislo – 2/5 2 R
• Matt Miller – 3.1 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 7 K, Save

Notable Goats

• I got nothing. This was good Michigan baseball.
• McLane Stadium Press Box for not having audio capabilities installed yet.

Other Notes

• No news stories yet.

Wrap Up

This weekend was a bunch of gray clouds with a silver lining. We lost two of three to lowly Michigan State, a team who ranks in the 260s of 288 in team hitting. We lost to an in state rival, who we haven’t lost a series to since I don’t even know when – at least 8 years. We beat ourselves so badly in the first two games. We’ve dropped into 8th place in the Big10. We’re in jeopardy of missing the BigTen Tournament for the first time since 2002.

And then Sunday happened. While Game 3 was Michigan Baseball like I expected all season. Game 3 offers hope. Perhaps, just maybe, we finally had that “turning point” so many people have talked about the last 4 weeks. Perhaps Michigan has finally hit stride and will begin to compete. Perhaps I’m being to optimistic. Perhaps not. This game has me excited for the rest of the BigTen season.

Speaking about the rest of the season, it’s the midway point of the conference season, so I’ll be breaking down what happened so far and what we can expect to come in a post due out either later today or tomorrow. As for the week ahead, we’ve got a home-and-home with Notre Dame on Tuesday/Wednesday. Tuesday is here at the Fish. The weekend sees the Indiana Hoosiers and probable BigTen Player of the Year Josh Phegley come to Ann Arbor. More updates on those as the week progresses.

Posted under Baseball