Two weeks ago, senior pitcher Chris Fetter notched a career-high 13 strikeouts to down the then-Big Ten leaders, the Fighting Illini, 4-2.

The Michigan baseball team proceeded to lose the next two games and the series.

Then, last weekend in East Lansing, Fetter left the game with a two-run lead against Michigan State after eight innings.

The Wolverines blew the lead, the game went into extra innings and Michigan lost the series.

And after a 12 strikeout-effort in Fetter’s 6-2 complete-game win Friday over Indiana, Michigan dropped two straight games for its third straight Big Ten series loss (8-7 Saturday, 3-1 Sunday).

Michigan coach Rich Maloney called it “just another tough loss.”

“We didn’t get the timely hit,” Maloney said. “It’s unfortunate. ... We’ve had four weekends in a row where we’ve had a chance to win the series.”

And in all four of those weekends, the Wolverines were unable to put together a solid pitching and hitting effort on the same night.

“It’s been the story of the season,” said junior rightfielder Nick Urban. “Every time we string hits together and score runs, we give up runs. Or when we don’t hit so well, we pitch great. We just need to be consistent.”

The Wolverines got consistency from the mound on Saturday as junior pitcher Eric Katzman delivered a 7.1 inning, three-run effort. But the Michigan offense came up empty, registering only one run and leaving 11 men on base.

In the eighth inning of Sunday’s matchup, senior leftfielder Kenny Fellows came to the plate with the bases loaded in a potential game-tying at-bat. But his effort was for naught as he popped out to left field. The next inning was more of the same as sophomore Ryan LaMarre, the potential game-tying batter, struck out to end the game.

“It’s tough when a guy like Katzman comes out and battles the whole game and gives us a good performance and we’re not giving him good run support,” Fellows said.

But Katzman is no stranger to a lack of run support.

In all three of his starts that resulted in losses, the Wolverine offense was never able to manufacture more than two runs. With limited support from his offense, Katzman’s only loss beyond that came in one inning of relief against Michigan State.

Maloney pointed to only a few mistakes Katzman made during the game (two leadoff walks and a solo home run) as his only pockmarks in an otherwise “marvelous” performance.

“He gave us a chance to win,” Maloney said. “And that’s really all you can ask from your pitching staff.”

With impending matchups against two of the Big Ten’s top three teams coming in the next two weeks, the pitching rotation will have to continue Katzman’s work to put together a solid effort beyond Fetter’s Friday night start.

But without an offense, the Wolverines have made it clear that even a good pitching effort could be for nothing.

Michigan’s two most dominant hitters, LaMarre and junior first baseman Mike Dufek, have come up relatively empty recently, with just three combined hits in the last five games.

And if the Wolverines can’t mount a complete effort and string together a few wins, they could be on the outside looking in when the Big Ten Tournament rolls around at the end of May — only the conference’s top six teams make the Tournament.

“Every game we’re fighting for our lives,” Urban said. “We’ve been fighting for our lives for a couple weeks now. We need to look inside ourselves and play good baseball. That’s it.”