OMAHA, Neb. – The phrase Revenge Tour usually brings Michigan football to mind. But lately, the term has been just as true of Michigan’s baseball team (47-20), which defeated No. 8 Texas Tech, 5-3, in the opening game of the College World Series on Saturday.
The past two weeks, the Michigan baseball team has captured the attention of every college baseball fan in the country as it’s made a run to the College World Series.
WESTWOOD, Calif. — Michigan had no business staying competitive in Saturday night’s affair with UCLA. That is, at least according to coach Erik Bakich.
There were two games and two stories Saturday for the No. 2 seed Michigan baseball team.
The Wolverines were just better than the Scarlet Knights, in every sense of the word.
Sophomore catcher Joe Donovan hit a three run, walk-off homerun that was gone as soon as it left the bat. Michigan (31-11 overall, 11-3 Big Ten) won 4-1 over Rutgers (17-24 overall, 7-8 Big Ten) for the weekend sweep.
The Wolverines put runners on base with walks and hit-by-pitches, advanced those runners on wild pitches and stolen bases and kept them alive on fielders’ choices and errors. In a weekend series that was closer than anticipated at times, much of the Wolverines’ success came when they were able to capitalize on their opponents’ mistakes.
The Wolverines were holding onto a 3-1 lead that had just been cut into by an RBI single by infielder Shawn Goosenberg. With two outs catcher Michael Trautwein ripped a grounder which passed a diving senior infielder Jimmy Kerr, but senior infielder Ako Thomas had him covered. Thomas’ dive was successful as he fielded the ball and tossed it to first for the out. Thomas effectively ended Northwestern’s comeback bid as the Michigan baseball team (26-11 overall, 6-3 Big Ten) won 4-1 over the Wildcats (16-18, 5-5) on Saturday afternoon.
Despite some early fielding difficulties which created an early deficit, the Michigan baseball team pulled itself together in the second half of the game Wednesday evening to best the Bowling Green State Falcons, 10-5.
Few anticipated what followed. Michigan dropped the first two games of the series, 10-5 and 10-4, with shaky performances from usually-dominant Nos. 1 and 2 starters, junior left-hander Tommy Henry and junior right-hander Karl Kauffman. The Wolverines avoided a sweep in the second game of Saturday’s doubleheader, beating the Buckeyes, 6-2.