The No. 10 Michigan baseball team has completed a grueling stretch of 15 games at exclusively away and neutral sites, coming away with an 8-7 record.
Jack Whitten
Daily Sports Writer
Baseball
Walker Cleveland hadn’t pitched in a competitive game since June, but on Tuesday night in California, that didn't seem to bother him.
While it was the first and only error committed by California (3-9) Wednesday night at Evans Field, it was symptomatic of the meek and mistake-prone play which cost it a 5-0 defeat at the hands of No. 5 Michigan (7-5).
Just a few weeks ago, Matthew Schmidt’s go-ahead homer in the ninth inning crowned him the hero of the Michigan baseball team’s season opening win against Vanderbilt.
This win gave Michigan a 2-1 series victory over Cal Poly, and Beers’s performance gave the Wolverines one of many answers they received to early-season questions this weekend.
Last June, the Wolverines filed out of the first-base dugout down into the annals of TD Ameritrade Stadium as the entire Vanderbilt baseball program jumped and hugged around the pitcher’s mound.
Through the last 14 days, the Michigan baseball team has grown familiar with UConn. The Huskies weren’t the toughest opponent it faced in that time. It wasn’t even the best team the Wolverines played — that title is reserved for the likes of Vanderbilt and Arizona State. But there’s something special about UConn, the only one to find success against Michigan, with a win on Feb. 16, followed by a 2-1 series win last weekend.
Two weeks, seven games and one-tenth of a championship-length season have already transpired. But only some of those games are guaranteed, and based on the tinkering Michigan coach Erik Bakich is performing with his pitching staff, it would appear he’s gunning for game 70.
The Wolverines two losses were much more representative of an unfortunate result against a formidable opponent than shocking takedowns of the nation’s No. 1 team. UConn, while certainly an underdog against Michigan, is an accomplished program in its own right, having made NCAA Regionals two years in a row. And the Wolverines’ defeats were a result of a failure to execute — not the exposure of a fatal flaw.
In response, the team’s message is simple.
“Staying the course,” junior right-hander Jeff Criswell said.
The Wolverines went on to win their College World Series rematch with Vanderbilt, 4-3, in large part thanks to Schmidt’s go-ahead blast.
Given that Schmidt hit in the seven spot against the Commodores, the long ball wasn’t necessarily expected. It was indicative of the bottom third of the lineup’s production from the weekend.