That ended up being the final score, as the Michigan baseball team (21-8 overall, 3-1 Big Ten) topped Minnesota (13-15, 6-2) on on Saturday afternoon.
Avi Rajendra-Nicolucci
Daily Sports Writer
Baseball
It was a heavyweight pitching battle Friday.
In one corner was Michigan ace junior left-hander Tommy Henry, coming in with a dominant 0.76 earned-run average and a 6-1 record, totaling 57 strikeouts on and just seven walks.
Erik Bakich has said in the past he believes his staff is leading the way on analytics. The defensive shift has taken over baseball, and Michigan is no stranger to using any advantage it can to make the difference.
The defense’s busy first inning would set the tone for the rest of Wednesday evening as a carousel of Michigan pitchers took the mound against Toledo.
Despite its ability to dominate, the Michigan baseball team’s offense has struggled with consistency — evident in last season’s early end after a promising 20-game win streak, as well as its sporadic performances against mid-major opponents this year. In light of this, Michigan’s pitching and defense have been essential in holding opponents to few runs and securing wins even when the offense can’t pull through.
The Wolverines (19-7 overall, 2-0 Big Ten) hit four home runs in their 16-2 victory over in-state rival Michigan State (4-20, 0-5).
“We got exposed,” said Michigan coach Erik Bakich. “We couldn’t hold (Texas Tech) down in the bullpen. They sped the game up on us defensively, they ran out one mid-to-upper 90s pitcher after the next and we weren’t able to handle it as well as we would have liked to.”
In the Michigan baseball team’s second midweek game of the season on Tuesday, it hoped to avoid the same pitching follies against Western Michigan that it had in the first.
Initially, it wasn’t obvious if it could.
It wasn’t just a way for players to stay warm after returning to Ann Arbor from their two sunny series in California and Florida. Michigan is taking part in “mustache March,” a campaign against amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease.
In the second game of its home opening series, the Wolverines completely overwhelmed Manhattan College, 23-2, with strong hitting and a consistent ability to capitalize on the Jaspers’ many mistakes.