A pitcher’s role is to give their batting lineup a chance.
A chance to quickly drive in runs with as little of a deficit to overcome as possible.
And on a day when the Michigan baseball team’s lack of pitching depth was poised to finally cost them in the Big Ten Tournament once and for all, it didn’t.
The Wolverines, on the heels of a slugfest 13-6 win over Indiana in an elimination game, were forced to rely upon two pitchers with a combined 31.1 innings pitched and an average ERA of 8.09 entering Saturday’s rematch with Iowa — freshman right-hander Brandon Mann and graduate right-hander Eamon Horwedel.
And despite the final score, Mann and Horwedel did their jobs.
They gave their offense a chance — giving up just one run across 5.2 innings pitched as a tandem — before the four runs let in after Horwedel gave the ball to junior left-hander Connor O’Halloran.
“I said to the coaches, even after the game (that) if you’d said to me earlier, ‘Hey, man, Iowa, (a) good hitting team’s going to get five today, would you take it?’ ” Michigan coach Tracy Smith said. “ ‘Yeah, I like our chances.’ ”
And if Smith had imagined getting those exact dominant innings out of Horwedel and Mann, he would’ve liked those chances even more.
Mann, a two-sport athlete as a rostered quarterback on the Michigan football team, entered Saturday’s game with a mere 14.2 innings pitched on the season — never having made a collegiate start in either sport, let alone in a win-or-go-home game.
But that experience — suiting up on fall Saturdays and enduring the grueling football preparation in the weeks between — prepared him for this moment.
“Mann steps in The Big House every Saturday,” senior second baseman Ted Burton said. “I wasn’t too worried about him.”
Mann backed up his teammate’s confidence, thriving in a high-pressure start and keeping the Wolverines up off the mat early. His scoreless first inning was followed up with a 1-2-3 second, notching a career-high four strikeouts before ceding to Horwedel after loading the bases with two outs in the third.
With the bases juiced, Horwedel partially got out of the third-inning jam and kept the game well within arm’s reach — the lone run scoring off a hit-by-pitch to Hawkeyes third baseman Raider Tello.
After that, the Ann Arbor native and Ohio University transfer settled down and came into his own on the Omaha dirt, battling hard to endure the brunt of Iowa’s lineup and keep his own batting order down just 1-0.
“Eamon, he’s just one of those guys who’s going to get out there and compete every pitch and try to win as many as possible,” Burton said.
That competitive spirit was evident. Horwedel delivered by far the most complete and clutch outing of his career, with no earned runs over nine outs.
Unfortunately for Michigan, it wasn’t capitalized on.
Nonetheless, the Wolverines’ senior leadership collectively took notice of the arm-work Mann and Horwedel did, positioning their teammates well to get the upset victory.
“Talking about the ‘next dude up’ mentality of playing for Michigan,” said senior left fielder Tito Flores, who maintained a 19-game hit streak through the last month of the season despite the overall offensive struggles. “They did a great job exemplifying that, Horwedel being his first year and same thing with Mann.”
With the unique exception of freshman third baseman and right-hander Mitch Voit, pitchers can’t be consistent hitters.
And as the Wolverines’ hitters were silenced early and often in Saturday’s season-ending loss, two largely unheralded pitchers stepped up to the mound and delivered.
Mann and Horwedel gave their team a chance — one that the Michigan offense failed to take advantage of.