But it loses 3?

After dropping the first two games of the series on Saturday, Michigan managed to salvage a victory on Sunday. Eric Katzman got the win with 5 innings of sketchy work, and Alan Oaks got the ridiculous 4 inning save. I say ridiculous because save rules allow there to be saves over two innings or more than 3 runs.

Katzman was a bit shaky in this game, throwing a ton of pitches and allowing baserunners in each of his 5 innings of work. He allowed 4 hits, 3 walks, hit a batter (with the bases loaded), but he only allowed one run. He struck out 5 and stranded 8 runners. Three of those runners came in the 5th inning when “Evil Katzman” entered the game. After a quick out, Katzman gave up a double, single, walk, and hit batsman to give up the run. After a quick conference with Coach Maloney, Katzman struck out his final batter of the day.

Alan Oaks entered the game in the 6th and gave up a run on back to back hits. Ohio State managed a run, but OSU left fielder made a base running blunder trying to stretch a double into a triple and making the last out at third base. For those of you less into baseball, that’s a huge huge mistake. Instead of having a runner in scoring position, you lose any shot at adding more runs that inning. Honestly, when I saw that, the first thing I said was, “That’s a Michigan mistake.” It’s the kind of poor base running I’ve grown accustom to lately. That play ended up being the turning point in the game as OSU lost the momentum and would never regain it.

Oaks finished the game with 4 innings pitched with 4 hits, 1 run, 2 walks and a strikeout. Very solid game and it may get him another shot at starting in the next two weeks. With the Burgoon start going less than stellar on Saturday, the third slot is still anyone’s to take, even this late in the season.

Offensively, everything was clicking for the Wolverines. All those line drives up the middle fell just outside of the reach of the OSU middle infielders. Soft fly balls to the gaps were just out of range of the outfielders. It was the exact opposite of game 1. You could just tell in the first inning when we collected a pair of infield singles that things were different in this game. Lady luck was on our side.

Mike Dufek and Jake McLouth were the big run producers on the day. Dufek went 3/5 with a double, 3 RBI, and a run. McLouth went 2/3 with 2 RBI. Both came through with the timely hits when we needed them, something we haven’t seen since the first few weeks of the season.

Anthony Toth and Ryan LaMarre were the run scorers. Toth scored three times despite only getting one hit in the game. LaMarre went 2/4 with a pair of singles and 2 runs scored. I really like what I saw of LaMarre’s bat this weekend. He hit a couple of balls hard in the no hitter but was robbed by the middle infielders. In game 3 he was driving liners to the opposite field, a sign of seeing the ball well. LaMarre also stole two bases in the game. You could tell the Buckeyes’ catcher Forsythe was struggling with the pitchers and with base runners in general. He was only in the game because normal starter Burkhart left Saturday’s game 2 with an undisclosed leg injury. While I’m glad Michigan could take advantage of the replacement starter, here’s hoping Burkhart’s alright.

Timmy Kal also had an excellent game, going 2/5 with a pair of doubles getting the spot start at third base. He also made an excellent defensive play at third base.

The loss in the series doesn’t set us back that much.  In the Half Way Home post I did two weeks ago, I thought we’d just win one game as well.  The problem growing there is how good MSU is finishing and how Purdue closes out their schedule.   It could be close on earning a 6 seed in the BTT.  More on that later in the week though.

Cislo Out

Not only did we lose two games, we also lost something a little more important. News came through via The Daily yesterday on the mysterious absence of Kevin Cislo from games 2 and 3 of the OSU series:

“I don’t know if he’ll be able to play at all (this season),” Maloney said. “I don’t know if he’s out for the year, but he’s definitely out.”

Mark it down as a bum shoulder for now. This injury is really bad. We lose our leader on the infield and one of our better hitters. We’ll see if Kevin may make a return by the BigTen tournament, but at this point I would imagine he’s done. Here’s hoping for a good recovery.

Also, I’m not much for fluff articles, but here’s a recent one on Kevin from The Ann Arbor News.

Mid Week Matchup

This week is a home and home series with Western Michigan. Tuesday is at Kalamazoo at 3:05pm, with Wednesday being at the Fish (6:35pm).

Posted under Baseball

What a poor offensive game for Michigan today.  While I’ll save the recap for Monday, here’s a look at what caused us to lose this game… at Ray Fisher Stadium in front of over 2,000 fans to a team that is now only 2-14 away from their home stadium.

• Michigan left 14 on base this game, including 6 in the first two innings.  A season high.
• Only 3 batters had hits in this game, Berset with 2, Lorenz, and McLouth.  The latter two were pulled for pinch hitters later in the game.
• The few times we hit the ball hard, it was right at someone.  Garrett Stephens’ liner and Nick Urban’s to end the game come directly to mind – both with runners on base.
• We had a season low 5 total bases.
• Batters 1-6 of the Michigan batting order were 0/20 with 6 walks (3 were Cislo).
• We were 1/20 with runners on base (1/19 with RISP)
• 8 Ks vs a team that averages 5.4 a game. 5 of those with RISP and less than 2 outs.
• A balk with 2 outs and a runner on third (in all fairness, Alan Oaks was awesome and didn’t deserve a loss).

We are making bad teams look good.  We’re now in 8th place in the conference ahead of only Northwestern and Iowa.  We may have just been swept by the Spartans for the first time in 10+ years (weather isn’t looking good for tomorrow, much less our team).  I don’t have the ability to look that up right now.

Posted under Baseball

Now that I’ve let the nerves and stomach settle from the initial reactions to the awful box score, I’ll actually comment on Wednesday night’s game against CMU. For those of you who couldn’t pick up from the first sentence of this paragraph, or even my ambiguous post about softball, the Michigan baseball team lost in embarrassing fashion to Central Michigan on Wednesday – 10-2 the final score.

The game featured 7 Wolverine pitchers making a trip to the mound. Coach Maloney was seeking some sort of spark from the starting rotation and started freshman Kevin Vangheluwe, but, as many other things with Michigan baseball lately, when it rains it pours, completely dousing any chance of a spark to happen. Kevin couldn’t make it out of the second inning, giving up 4 runs while only recording 2 outs.

Things never got much better after that. Wilson gave up a run in 1.1 innings, Matt Miller gave up 2 runs (1 earned), and Brandon Sinnery gave up 3 runs in 0.1 innings. The good news is Travis Smith looked good in the short 1.1 inning appearance, as did Kolby Wood and Alan Oaks throwing a perfect 2.2 innings to finish the game.

Defense wasn’t much prettier. Along with a throwing error on a double play chance by Toth and a throwing error on a bunt single by Lorenz, there were several reported brain lapses on the field. Nick Urban was pulled from third base after failing to cover third base, allowing a pair of runners to advance. Five(!) balls hit to the outfield should have been caught but weren’t. One I give Fellows a break for as he slipped on the turf that was still wet from the snow last weekend, but the other four could – and most probably should – have been caught, including the play in this picture from Liesa Thompson at the Ann Arbor News:

We didn’t do well behind the plate either. Kalczynski had his 9th passed ball of the year. He bobbled another transition on a base stealing attempt, dropping the ball. He would eventually be replaced by McLouth during the middle of that same inning during a pitching change. That pitching change? It was on an 0-2 count when Maloney pulled Sinnery. Pulling a pitcher on 0-2? What’s going on?

The offense was anemic this game. Despite Alan Oaks great outing on the mound, his plate appearances were atrocious. He went 0/4 with 2 Ks, a foul out to second base, and a 4-6-3 double play. He stranded 4 runners on base to end innings.

The 6 hits Michigan mustered came from 6 different players. Fellows, Cislo, LaMarre, Dufek, Crank, Kalczynski each had a hit-a-piece, Cislo and LaMarre’s being doubles. The team only managed multiple hits in one inning, the 8th, where they scored just one run. The run in the 9th came by walks and errors on behalf of CMU.

If you want a positive in all this, we only stranded 6 runners (would have been 2 more if not for a pair of grounded into double plays) and we only struck out 7 times… only 7 times….

In defense of some of the hitting, Coach Maloney made an attempt to stir up the lineup in this game. The starting lineup looked like this:

• Fellows, Kenny lf
• Toth, Anthony ss
• Cislo, Kevin 2b
• LaMarre, Ryan cf
• Dufek, Mike 1b
• Urban, Nick 3b
• Crank, Coley dh
• Oaks, Alan rf/p
• Kalczynski, Tim c

Some of this makes some sense. Toth has raised his average to a point where he would look attractive in the 2-hole. Fellows is getting on base enough and has the ability to steal bases; he’s alright for a 1-hole, but not the most attractive choice. Alan Oaks dropping down makes sense with the bottom of this line up, too. Kalczynski makes sense in the 9-hole as well as he has been doing a little bit better about getting on base.

What’s Going On?

Michigan isn’t the same team its been the last few years. We lost the best team we’ve had since the CWS runs in the 80s. We have a group of 5 walk ons that lead the team. Two of them were either cut or virtually told to go elsewhere for playing time:

Coach Rich Maloney cut Kenny Fellows from the University of Michigan baseball team during his freshman-season tryout. Two years later, Maloney told Tim Kalczynski he could transfer if he wanted playing time.

We have several players playing out of their original positions. Urban was a walk-on middle infielder turned outfielder who is occasionally thrown into third base. Kalczynski was once a walk-on outfielder playing catcher and occasionally third base.

Add in our youth and inexperience, and you’ve some problems. Lorenz is a true freshman who didn’t even play his senior year of high school ball. McLouth and Crank are making the best they can of their early playing time, but neither has been that consistent. They’re freshman.

Once you start looking at the scholarship players, many of them are just in their first year of starting as well. Michigan lost Nate Recknagel, Adam Abraham, Jason Christian, Leif Mahler, and Zach Putnam this off season from the offensive starting lineup. Berset, Dufek, and LaMarre contributed a lot, but they weren’t the leaders. They will hopefully be that one day, but right now they are just sophomores and juniors.

Kevin Cislo is the player I’m looking to right now to pick up the team. Maybe this is why Coach Maloney moved him to the three hole. Put him right in the middle of everything and see what happens. Let him try and spark the team. Let him lead. The problem with this is Kevin isn’t a three hole hitter. Unlike Iowa who can throw Toole in the center of the lineup to generate offense, Michigan doesn’t have the same team build. We have power hitters, they need runners on in front of them who can move themselves into scoring position to be hit in.

Pitching isn’t much different than the offense. We don’t have experience. What experience we have in the starting staff is either very good (Fetter) or meh (Wilson). Katzman is in his first season as a starter. Smith hasn’t had a full season of starts yet and he’s just a sophomore. In relief, we don’t have that dominate guy. As much as I hoped Burgoon would be that guy, he’s not.

We’re a young team; we’re an inexperienced team. We’re a not that great team. It is what it is.

How Do We Fix It?

This is the toughest question on Maloney’s mind I’m sure. I think we have two options at this point.

1) We need an upperclassman to step up and really take over this team. He needs to call a players only meeting and say all those right things, but more importantly, he needs to back it up with his play on the field. He needs to be the enforcer, not Coach Maloney. He needs to be the one picking up guys. He needs to be the one getting on a guys case when he’s out of position.

During the preseason, and even into the first few weeks of the season, I thought Chris Berset was going to be the one to do this. I thought this was Chris’s team to take over. Maybe its the catcher in me that makes me feel this, but the catcher that runs much of the show. Sure its probably coincidence that we went from 7-2 with Berset to only 11-9 without him. I think his value to our lineup cannot be matched from Crank and Kalczynski, neither can his leadership. I’m not sure when he’s due back, but its not soon enough.

2) Our hitting coach (whether that be Maloney and Ust) has to step up his game. Something has to be done about our strikeout rate. Something has to be done about moving runners into scoring position and knocking them in.

The worst thing that can happen now is the team starts putting too much unnecessary pressure on themselves. That will just force more bad habits.  As Coach says:

“They may even be trying more than they should be trying. I don’t know. But right now it’s more psychological than it is anything else. It’s not the opponent – we are the opponent. We’re beating ourselves.”

We’ll see how we do against Illinois this weekend.  Wake up boys, its time to produce.

Posted under Baseball

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.

Read More…

Posted under Baseball

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

• Mike Dufek – 2/4 2 RBI, 2B
• Tyler Burgoon – 3 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 3 Ks, Save
• Alan Oaks – 2/4 HR
• Kevin Cislo – 3/4 R, RBI
• Fan Attendance – 731 is a solid number for opening day in 40 degree temperatures. Paul tells me they got to sit right next to former baseball center fielder Rick Leach (yes, that Rick Leach).

Notable Goats

• Kenny Fellows – Despite getting a hit and walk, he stranded 4 base runners. More on stranding runners in the coming days.

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

• Eric Katzman – 6 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 10 K, 2 BB, W
• Matt Miller – 3 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 5 K, Save
• Mike Dufek – 1/2 2-run-HR, BB
• LOB – 0 runners left on base?

Notable Goats

• Eric Katzman in the 2nd inning – 1B, E1, Balk, SAC FLY
• Alan Oaks – 2 inning ending double plays

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

• Kenny Fellows – 2/5 4 RBI, 2B
• Alan Oaks – 3/4 RBI
• Mike Dufek – 2/4 2 R, 2 RBI, HR, 2B
• John Lorenz – 3/4 2 R, RBI, HR
• Kevin Cislo – 15 game hitting streak

Notable Goats

• Ryan LaMarre – Only starter without a hit, hitless all weekend

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

Times have been adjusted as I thought it was Mountain Time, not Mountain Standard Time, which is currently Pacific Daylight Time. Arizona doesn’t use daylight savings time. Ridiculous.

Arizona

from arizona.edu

10pm Friday, 7pm Saturday, 2pm Saturday (all EDT)
Jerry Kindall Field
Tuscon, AZ

Media Game 1: Live Stats, Audio, and Video ($*)
Probable Starters Game 1: Chris Fetter (2-0)
Media Game 2: Live Stats, Audio, and Video
Probable Starters Game 2: Eric Katzman (2-1)
Media Game 3: Live Stats, Audio, and Video
Probable Starters Game 3: Travis Smith (2-1)
Series:  Arizona leads 42-12
Last Meeting:  Michigan 3, Arizona 4, 2008 Regional in Ann Arbor

*Video requires at least paying a $9.95 monthly subscription for buy it — as it is automatically renewed each month.  It also requires you to download Microsoft Silverlight 2.0.  I really wish Michigan would expand its sports coverage to this level.

Overview

The Arizona Wildcats are a middle of the road Pac10 team, picked to finish 5th by the coaches, with a current record of 8-7 including a three game sweep by #9 Georgia and a 2 game sweep by #11 Oklahoma State.  Those two sweeps are why they still sit so high in RPI (#61) despite the record.  The Wildcats haven’t really played anyone I would say that compares closely to Michigan.  Most teams they have played are either top 15 or bottom 150.

Offense

Unlike many of the teams Michigan has faced so far, Arizona doesn’t have that one guy that makes the offense click.  They, instead, use a combined team effort to produce runs.   They currently have 9 batters of the 13 players seeing regular playing time with batting averages over .300.  Due to the inconsistency in the lineup, I’m not sure what to expect going into the weekend.

I imagine second basemen Rafa Valenzuela will keep his lead off role this weekend.  He is leading the team in hitting at .378, but he’s only started in 10 of the 15 games so far.  He’s not much of a threat on the bases, currently 2/3 on stolen base attempts.

The current RBI leader for the Wildcats is third basemen Jett Bandy with 15.  Bandy has played in 14 of Arizona’s 15 games, batting anywhere from 3rd to 6th.  He’s only batting .296, but he also leads the team in doubles with eight.

At the bottom of the order, Bryce Ortega has provided consistency at shortstop in his 14 starts.  Ortega has hit .327 with a team high 17 runs scored.  He’s second on the team with 13 RBIs.

Bobby Coyle is the only player to start every game this season.  The centerfielder is only batting .284 with 10 RBIs and 12 runs scored.

Pitching

Starting pitching has been a real weakness for the Wildcats this year.  I can’t make heads or tails of their rotation so far, and the Arizona website hasn’t announced probable starters yet either.  Last week saw their coach try two new starters, neither of which did particularly well against #11 Oklahoma State.

Coming into the season, Arizona was looking to set up the rotation around three pitchers, Preston Guilment, Matt Veltmann, and Donn Roach.  So far on the season, they have a combined record of 3-5 and 6.30 ERA.  Guilmet has had the best success of the three, going 16 innings in 3 starts, posting a 1-1 record and 5.76 ERA.  He also sports a 7:15 walk-to-strikeout ratio.  The other two are averaging just over 3 innings per start.

Freshman Kyle Simon also made three starts for the Wildcats.  In his three starts, Simon has gone 10 2/3 innings, allowing 13 runs (9 earned), on 17 hits and 5 strike outs.  He also had a long relief appearance against Georgia, going 4 innings giving up 8 hits and 3 runs.  His ERA currently sits around 6.75.

Relief pitching has been used early and often this season for Arizona.  Cody Burns, a right handed senior, has already made 12 appearances this season.  His numbers haven’t been the best this season, giving up 8 earned runs in 15 1/3 innings pitched with 8 walks and 21 strike outs.  His overall appearances have been hampered by poor fielding to the tune of 6 unearned runs.

Jason Stoffel has been the bright spot in the bullpen.  As their closer, he has seen work in 9 games, striking out 22 in 16 innings.  He has three saves on the season, and has been impressive in each outing.  His 1.60 ERA is by far the best on the team.

Outlook

I think Michigan may be able to win 2 of 3 in this series, which should really help with the RPI.  The game I’m least optimistic about is the Eric Katzman start.  I’m not saying I expect us to lose, but its the game I’m least certain about.  Chris Fetter should be his normal self and I’m really liking what I’m seeing from Travis Smith lately.  The bullpen will be well rested as we didn’t have a midweek game.

It will be interesting to see who catches most of the games in this series.  As it stands, Berset is currently listed as fourth on the depth chart at catcher.  I can’t say I saw that coming, but with the emergence of Coley Crank and Jake McLouth as offensive forces, and Timmy Kalcynzski’s leadership, Berset has seen himself drop from solid starter to 4th string in a matter of weeks. Chris Berset remains out with a broken thumb (as pointed out by JJ in the comments).  Crank hit extremely well last week, McLouth could make an appearance there, or team captain Timmy Kalczynski, who is listed as probable starter in the weekly release may be used.  [updated after comment made by JJ]

Other Note

Saturday is “Club Arizona Kid’s Day” which sounds violent, but is actually a pretty good deal for any person under the age of 18, as tickets are $1 and other activities are held throughout the ball park.

Posted under Baseball

Polls are in. Somehow Michigan stills shows up in three of them. Your guess is as good as mine on how we didn’t even drop in the Collegiate Baseball poll. The Coaches’ Poll (USA Today/ESPN) last week was technically the preseason, so our initial start is why we went up. Also, we faced two of the coaches voting in that poll, in Jacksonville’s Alexander Terry (who we beat 21-3 and lost 10-2) and St. John’s Ed Blankenmeyer (a team we shut down despite their being an offensive juggernaut). Another note, while pointless right now, I included the Ping! Poll in the chart. May we one day be in it.

Poll	Current	LW
RPI	TBA	TBA
NCBWA	28	25
Collegiate Baseball	28	28
BaseballAmerica	NR	NR
Ping!Baseball	NR	NR
Rivals	NR	NR
USA Today/ESPN	32*	37*

*In others receiving votes section

BigTenHardball details their all weekend team. I can’t argue with any omissions like I did last week with collegebaseball360. BTH’s Brian does some quality work. Dufek might have warranted a honorable mention for his work in the bullpen, but it wasn’t that much of an oversight. Michigan showed up as follows.

• 2B – Kevin Cislo
• OF – Ryan LaMarre
• BN – Anthony Toth
• BN – Jake McLouth
• 4th SP – Chris Fetter

Something else stands out in the list, and the rankings for that matter: Ohio State has come out of near nowhere to start the season and is playing some high quality ball. I figured them to be a candidate to vie with Indiana for third in the conference, but now… watch out.

Pythagorean Theorem. Happy Valley Hardball put out their first look at the Pythagorean Theorem for team winning percentages. The idea is that expected winning percentage is a function of runs scored and runs allowed. Currently Michigan shows up as third best in the conference, in a power poll sort of way. The emphasis on Penn State is obviously his.

	Team	Runs Scored	Runs Allowed	Pyth %	Delta
1	Ohio State	67	42	0.718	-0.282
2	Illinois	47	31	0.697	-0.136
3	Michigan.	73	58	0.613	-0.165
4	Indiana	38	31	0.600	0.000
5	Minnesota	40	35	0.566	-0.148
6	Purdue	42	45	0.466	0.132
7	Michigan St	23	37	0.279	0.112
8	Penn State	25	42	0.262	-0.024
9	Northwestern	29	52	0.237	-0.013
10	Iowa	22	58	0.126	-0.041

Loss to Jacksonville Looks Better.  I didn’t say good, but Jacksonville beat #6 Florida State in the midweek matchup.  As stated previously, midweek games can really hurt teams.  Another case this week was Indiana losing to Indiana State.  Just beating some of these teams will lower our RPI later in the season, losing will really hurt.  I still think we’ll lose one or two of these games later in the season, including one against Notre Dame.

Baseball Programming Update. I’ve got another pretty busy weekend planned this time around. I plan to have the Siena update out late Thursday night. I’m not sure what I’m going to do for the Mets. If anything comes out in the weekly release, I’ll be sure to let you know. It should be out today or tomorrow.

Posted under Baseball

In this edition of Stat Watch, we continue are look into the baseball teams offensive attack, but we start experimenting with pitching as well. I’ve also been playing with a new data/graphing system throughout the day, so graphs may show up and disappear as Paul and I work in the upgrade.

Hitting

The hitting stats are becoming more refined as batters are starting to accumulate at-bats. Our current at-bat leader (40 ABs) is Jake McLouth, who newly moved into the clean up position, has still yet to draw a walk this season. Cislo and Fellows pull up the rear with 31 ABs. I left Berset and Lorenz out of those numbers as they are replaced fairly consistently and have about 2/3 less the number of plate appearances as Cislo and Fellows.

The batting average didn’t quite make the jump you’d expect after winning a game 21-3 with 19 hits. Last week we ended with a .288 batting average; this week we end with a .291 average. Not much improvement right there.

As you can see, on-base-percentage also didn’t make a jump either. We actually lost .003 points down to .406 this week. This kind of comes off a little bit weird. I would have thought the Jacksonville 19-hit affair would have raised the percentage, but as they say, one game doesn’t make the season.

The rest of our games have been pretty abysmal in terms of hitting, and it shows in the following graph. What we have here is average hits (H/9), runs (R/9), walks (plus hit by pitch, BB/9), and strike outs (K/9) per 9 innings of hitting.

It’s encouraging to see our runs per nine innings going so high. It would be pretty high even if you took our 21 run game and made it 8, our current average, it would still have us scoring about 6.67 runs per game. That’s should be enough to compete well in any league… at least if our pitching keeps up their side of the deal.

I’d also like to point out the strike out’s per nine innings. That number has continued to grow as we’ve gone along, which is a definite problem. We’re currently averaging over a strike out per inning (9.11/9-innings). It’s killing several of our innings.

Lineup Changes

As mentioned in the weekend recap, we had a few lineup changes this weekend. Let’s take a little bit at a look why, just so you out there get a better idea of what’s going on. First, let’s look at McLouth vs Dufek.

On the left, we can see McLouth is hitting leaps and bounds above Dufek. Dufek is .182 points behind in average alone. In the slugging category, McLouth is averaging .279 more bases per at bat. In more basic terms, McLouth averages an extra single every 4 at bats he takes. That’s a very sizable gap.

This move places a better hitter behind our best player, Ryan LaMarre. By doing this, pitchers cannot pitch around and walk LaMarre without fear of giving up more runs. With Dufek struggling behind LaMarre, we may lose a few runs each game that his struggles continue.

The second move by Coach Maloney was to switch Anthony Toth and Kenny Fellows. Toth mainly batting in the 2-hole, as we can see in the graph below, was getting on consistently, but he was not able to put the ball in play and move the runners on base around or gather many RBIs.

Looking at the two players’ production, the on base numbers are currently very consistent, and both are rather good. The difference is the hitting, which Fellows has done better and more consistently better. Fellows is currently hitting .387, as compared to .250 for Toth.

By switching the two batters, Maloney is hoping that Toth will still continue his pace with walks, setting the table for the top of the order. The hope for Fellows is that he continues to hit and get on base, driving in more runs, moving the runners a head of him into scoring position, and still get on base to score for the heart of the order behind him.

The ideal inning would start with a Toth walk, a Cislo single on a hit and run putting runners at first and third, a Cislo steal right before a Fellows RBI single. LaMarre either walks or hits a double, followed by a McLouth double, and then either struggle through Dufek and Berset to try to eek out a last run before Lorenz comes up, as he’s statistically an out. That kind of inning is 5-7 runs, which are the kind of innings that win college baseball games.

Leader Board – Offense

Average		On Base%		Slugging%
Player	AVG	Player	OB%	Player	SLG%
Ryan LaMarre	.421	Kenny Fellows	.500	Ryan LaMarre	.711
Kenny Fellows	.387	T-Ryan LaMarre	.488	Jake McLouth	.650
Jake McLouth	.350	T-Kevin Cislo	.488	Nick Urban	.486
Runs Batted In		Runs		Walks + HBP
Player	RBI	Player	R	Player	BB/HBP
Ryan LaMarre	17	Kevin Cislo	13	T-Kevin Cislo	12
Jake McLouth	10	Anthony Toth	11	T-Anthony Toth	12
T-Toth/Fellows	7	Ryan LaMarre	9	Mike Dufek	8
Steals		Doubles		Home Runs
Player	SB	Player	2B	Player	HR
Kevin Cislo	5	Nick Urban	4	Jake McLouth	4
Ryan LaMarre	3	T-Kevin Cislo	3	Ryan LaMarre	3
Anthony Toth	2	T-John Lorenz	3	Mike Dufek	2

Pitching

And here’s where things get fun. Instead of showing trends, which don’t help much over 2 appearances or less than 15 innings, I think I’m going to look through some of the team statistics. This process may be adjusted to individual pitchers by the time the conference season rolls around.

Here we see the opponent batting average, on base percentage, and slugging percentage. The opponent batting average is currently .306, the on base percentage is .343, and the slugging percentage is .442 for the season. The on base numbers aren’t too bad, which surprises the heck out of me. Its amazing how such a bad weekend can make you forget how great a weekend the BigEast/Big10 Challenge really was on the mound. Opponents are out hitting us and out slugging us this season, which is never a good sign. We should be looking to get that opponent average down into the .290s or less. On base percentages need to drop to the .310s at the highest, and slugging… well it has a lot of room for improvement.

In this chart we have the “per 9 innings” stats of our opponents accumulated through the season. This just breaks down the previous chart into reasons why we are getting out hit. Opponents average an extra .5 hits per game, which isn’t much, but we average about 1.5 more walks per game. We also strike out about one more time per game than our opponents. I would put ideal numbers to be at to be H/9 ~ 8, K/9 ~ 9, BB/9 ~ 2, and ERA around 4.00. Right now the ERA is pretty close to what we would want in a season, but we should never just settle. We should always strive to improve the numbers.

Leader Board – Pitching

Starter ERA		Innings		Starter Ks
Player	ERA	Player	INN	Player	Ks
Chris Fetter	1.64	Eric Katzman	11.2	Chris Fetter	13
Eric Katzman	3.09	Chris Fetter	11	Travis Smith	10
Travis Smith	4.70	Kolby Wood	10.2	All 3 others	6
Relief ERA		Relief App		Relief Ks
Player	ERA	Player	APP	Player	Ks
Mike Dufek	1.80	Tyler Burgoon	4	Matt Miller	11
Tyler Burgoon	3.12	T-Matt Miller	3	Mike Dufek	6
Matt Miller	3.86	T-Matt Gerbe	3	Tyler Burgoon	5
Oppon BA		Walks+HBP/9IP		Saves
Player	BA	Player	BB/HBP	Player	Sv
Mike Dufek	.125	Chris Fetter	2.45	T-Mike Dufek	1
Matt Miller	.185	T-Mike Dufek	3.6	T-Tyler Burgoon	1
Chris Fetter	.233	T-Brandon Sinnery	3.6*	T-Matt Miller	1

*This is the only stat Sinnery can claim he’s doing well in right now.

Next week I’ll look at some of these same stats and hopefully have some better news on the pitching front.  I plan on working into some more advance statistics as the season moves along, I’ve just been bogged down with other things.

Posted under Baseball

Midweek games are the traditional trap games that really haunt the top ranked teams in college baseball. You generally schedule cupcakes, throw whatever you have left that resembles a starting pitcher, a few of your backup players to earn experience, and pray like hell the other team just doesn’t have one of those nights where they’re hot. College baseball, even more so than college basketball, has a much more even playing field. Teams like #3 Texas A&M (NBCWA Poll) can fall to teams like Centenary College. The midweek game is where depth is exposed. The underdog throws out the best they got to topple the Goliaths.

Michigan 9, North Florida 8
Box Score
Win – Wilson (1-0) Loss – Lott (0-1) Save – Burgoon (1)

Michigan just missed their first weeknight upset at the hands of the North Florida Osprey. In front of 762 fans in a meh attempt at a White Out, Michigan prevailed by the narrow margin of 9-8. If it weren’t for North Florida’s pitching collapsing a bit in the 4th inning, Michigan would have lost this game pretty badly.

Game Summary

North Florida jumped out to a early 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first on three straight singles and a sacrifice fly. Brandon Sinnery, in his first career start, managed to escape the inning from a great throw and relay, Urban to Cislo to Lorenz to get a runner taking too aggressive of a turn around third base. Chris Berset also had a throwing error in the inning trying to catch a runner stealing. His throw got away from him, but the runner would have scored anyways.

Sinnery was yanked after giving up a double in the 2nd inning with two outs. His final line was 1.2 innings pitched, 2 ERs on 6 hits with a strike out. That’s not what Maloney was looking for by any stretch. Hopefully the freshman picks it up when the midweek games pick up during the conference season.

Gerbe, who replaced Sinnery, pitched the next 1.1 innings, giving up a single, double, and sacrifice fly in the 3rd inning. He managed to only give up the single run but he was done for the night.

Michigan came in to the top of the 4 down 3-0. Ryan LaMarre lead off with an infield single to short stop; it was a slow roller that the defender had no shot at making a play with. With a full count, LaMarre went with the pitch, and Dufek grounded to the second baseman, who had no play on LaMarre. One out. McLouth then knocked a pitch to left field toward the line. LaMarre slipped rounding third, but probably wouldn’t have scored anyways. The throw went to the plate, allowing McLouth to advance to second. After an Urban fly out, the UNF pitching staff walked the next three batters forcing in two runs. With the bases still loaded, Kevin Cislo knocked a three run single to center. Cislo advanced to second on a passed ball then stole third, setting up a Toth RBI single. Michigan was up 6-3.

Michigan would tact 3 more runs on in the 5th inning. McLouth knocked his second home run of the season out to lead off the inning. After a Nick Urban single, Chris Berset knocked his own homdinger. That put Michigan up 9-3, to what one would think would be a safe lead.

Well not so fast my friend, North Florida added a run in the 6th from a pair of doubles. In the 7th, Michigan started with an error on Mike Dufek – its never a good sign when you give up an easy out to start an inning. Its worse when you walk the next batter, which we do. Wilson gets a ground ball that looks to be a double play, but we only manage to get the out at second. After giving up another single, Mike Wilson is pulled for Matt Miller. Miller gives up a walk and a single before striking out a batter. Enter Burgoon. After a walk and a hit by pitch, Burgoon finally gets Michigan out of the inning with a fly ball. It’s 9-8.

From here on out, it was pretty quiet. Michigan stranded a runner on third in the 8th. The Osprey just couldn’t get anything going against Burgoon down the stretch.

Well that was closer than it should have been.

Positives

• We didn’t get caught stealing in either of our two attempts
• Nick Urban extends his hitting streak to 5 games
• A win is a win
• This is the best start we’ve had to a season since 1991

Negatives

• Mike Wilson was Mike Wilson yeah of 2008, getting by in ugly ways
• Kenny Fellows ends his hitting streak at 4 games (still batting .412)
• Mike Dufek continued his struggles going 0/5 with 3 runners left on base
• That was way too close for comfort

Notable Players

• Chris Berset – 1/2 2 Rs, 2 RBIs, HR, 2 BBs
• Jake McLouth – 2/5 R, 2 RBIs, HR
• Kevin Cislo – 2/4 R, 3 RBIs, 2B
• Tyler Burgoon – 2.1 IP, H, BB, K

Next game: Friday @ 1pm vs Wisconsin-Milwaukee at the Jacksonville tournament. Preview will be out tonight.

Posted under Baseball

UPDATE (3:30pm):  Brandon Sinnery is starting for Michigan, he went 0.1 innings this weekend giving up a hit and a walk.  Also, I missed the 2000 game against the Osprey, who we are 0-1 against, so this is a vengeance game.  Oaks still isn’t listed on the depth chart, despite being listed in the weekly press release.  Seems odd.  Anyone with information, please leave a comment.

Baseball Stream – via Atlantic Sun IPTV, but it’s $5.99 pay per view.  Seems pricey, but at least its out there.

White Out the Wolverines – UNF is planning a White Out for the game tonight.  Make sure you fans going to the game wear something Maize as their colors are White and Navy.  You’ll stand out like a sore thumb, announcing the Michigan presence.  First pitch is 7pm, pitchers are still TBA.  I’m going to guess Mike Wilson for Michigan just because we haven’t seen him yet.

All BigEast/Big10 Challenge Players –Collegebaseball360.com released their attempt at forming a 18 person all tournament team from the weekend. Not an easy thing to do when picking from 18 teams playing 24 games.

Notables for Michigan:

• Starting Pitcher – Eric Katzman (Michigan, LHP, Jr.)
• Relief Pitcher – Tyler Burgoon (Michigan, RHP, So.)
• RF -Nick Urban (Michigan, Sr.)
• DH – Jake McLouth (Michigan, Fr.)

Notably absent? Kenny Fellows. The guy bats .541 with a run, 2 RBIs, and 2 assists in the outfield and he gets nothing. Those 4 times being caught stealing hurt him as he lost the chance to score a few more runs.

Big10 Player of the Week – Nick Urban took Big10 POTW honors this week. Tyler Burgoon and Eric Katzman get the shaft. I can understand Eric Jokisch (NU) getting the nod for the complete game, but Drew Rucinski (OSU)? Let us compare:

Burgoon, Tyler (2-0)

Appearance	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	AB	BF
1	1.0	0	0	0	0	0	3	3
2	4.0	3	0	0	0	4	14	14
Total	5.0	3	0	0	0	4	17	17

Rucinski, Drew (1-0, 1 Sv)

Appearance	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	AB	BF
1	3.1	1	0	0	1	3	1	13
2	3.0	2	0	0	0	3	10	10
Total	6.1	3	0	0	1	6	21	23

I mean the guy gave up a walk for crying out loud. And sacrifices? Burgoon scoffs at the sort. He just gets outs.

Poll Watching – Michigan slides up in most polls with the 4-0 start.

Poll	Current	LW
RPI	TBA	TBA
NCBWA	25	30
Collegiate Baseball	28	29
BaseballAmerica	NR	NR
Rivals	NR	NR
USA Today/ESPN	37*	TBA

*In others receiving votes section

No love yet from Rivals, who generally is very reluctant about teams not from the SEC/Big12/Pac10/Big West/ACC. RPI hasn’t been posted anywhere I’ve seen yet (ncaa.com or boyd’s world), which isn’t surprising due to the minimal number of games so far. Coaches poll (USA Today) haven’t posted yet, it will be updated if/when it come in today

Posted under Baseball