MINNEAPOLIS — After winning on back-to-back days to start the Big Ten Tournament, the Michigan baseball team earned a much-needed day off on Friday. The Wolverines topped Indiana, 4-1, in the tournament’s first game on Wednesday morning and took down No. 19 Iowa on Thursday, 8-5, to clinch a spot in the semifinal round Saturday.
Michigan (14-10 Big Ten, 35-23 overall) hung around fifth or sixth place in the conference standings for much of the season, but jumped up to a third-place finish in the last weekend when multiple series upsets dropped teams like Maryland, Michigan State and Ohio State to the bottom half of the bracket. This improved seeding wasn’t thought to have a particularly large impact on the Wolverines’ performance this week, as all of the eight teams that made the tournament could be in contention for NCAA tournament bids.
Key players come up limping
One factor that’s unique to postseason baseball is the number of games a team plays on consecutive days. Without earning a bye, the Wolverines would have played at least one game every day from Wednesday through Sunday until they lost twice. This isn’t something that teams are used to or conditioned for, and Michigan — a team that’s been shaking the injury bug all season — has weathered the storm.
Junior left fielder Cody Bruder, who has started in the outfield for all of the Wolverines’ 57 games coming into Thursday, had to be shifted to the designated hitter spot as a precaution to an injury.
Though it was a new position, Bruder was a standout player in the game. After Iowa smashed a leadoff home run in the bottom of the first, jumping out to an early 1-0 lead, Bruder jacked one of his own to the bleachers in left field the next inning to tie things back up and send Michigan to victory.
He finished the day 3-for-5 with two RBI and two runs scored.
“Just a little tender elbow,” Bruder said. “I took it a little easy today and let Kevin (White) play out there a little bit. It’s kind of a mindset, you just have to stay in tune and live in the dugout. Playing just one side of the ball lets you focus a little more on that side and led me to a pretty decent day.”
Another major player that’s not at 100 percent is third baseman Travis Maezes. The junior has missed time this season with a few different injuries and is most recently bothered by an injured knee. He was held out for two games of the team’s final regular-season series against No. 14 Oklahoma State because of the same injury.
Maezes’ batting average, which was around .330 through the heart of the season, has slowly dipped closer to the horizion. It currently sits at .303.
Bullpen gets job done, appreciates off day
Used relatively sparingly through two games, the Michigan bullpen has risen to each occasion it’s been called into action for.
In the opening game against Indiana, relief pitchers combined to cover only 2.2 innings of work, allowing just one hit over that time en route to the win. Similarly in game two, the back-end threw three innings. The Hawkeyes managed just one hit and scored one run — though it was unearned.
Junior right-hander Jacob Cronenworth accounts for three of the 5.2 innings from the bullpen, earning saves in both appearances. Having a consistent contribution from a closer is key in postseason baseball, but is difficult to rely on when playing so many games with such little rest between contests.
“We have the day off tomorrow which will help a lot,” said junior pitcher Evan Hill. “It’ll be a rest for our arms. Jacob (Cronenworth) can settle down and come back and maybe throw on Saturday. We’ll probably have a practice and have our normal routine.”
Mac Lozer, a sophomore right-hander, also threw in both appearances.
Heavy left-handed lineup causes problems for opposition
When Bakich heads to the plate to exchange lineup cards before games, he knows what’s in his hands isn’t something many teams in the nation can match. Not only are the hitters some of the best in the nation, but often six of the nine batters set up shop in the left-handed batter’s box.
This comes into play when the opposition runs a right-handed pitcher to the mound, who, by baseball conventional wisdom, is at a disadvantage. As a pitcher, you want a breaking-ball to cut away from the hitter, and if a right-handed pitcher is throwing to a left-handed hitter, that’s not the case.
There’s no way to tell for certain how much this advantage actually helps the Wolverines, but it has turned some heads.
“I think it’s tough for pitchers to come out and consistently come out and pound the zone when you have that many lefties,” Hill said. “You’re not used to seeing that many in a lineup. It screws guys up, and we have very patient and veteran hitters with a lot of juniors and seniors in the lineup that work the count and get pitch counts up.”
Michigan clearly used this advantage against Iowa starting pitcher Blake Hickman. The right-hander, who is considered a major prospect in the upcoming draft, has faced the Wolverines twice since the beginning of May. He lasted a combined 4.1 innings in those starts, allowing seven runs to cross the plate.
If you scratch out his starts against Michigan, Hickman’s season earned-run average is a stellar 2.43. Against the Wolverines, however, it sits at 10.39